President Donald Trump snapped at Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday morning at the United Nations general assembly, days after banning CNN from The White House.
“It’s an honor to be here. I’m surprised that CNN is here covering me. You shouldn’t be here, you should not — you should not be here covering me, you said you weren’t going to cover me. You shouldn’t be covering me,” Trump told reporters alongside First Lady Melania Trump. “But I will tell you: It is an honor to be at the United Nations and we’re making a lot of progress. Our country is doing really, really well.”
Collins subsequently pointed out to her viewers via live shot that CNN was credentialed by the U.N. in this instance, not the Trump administration.
“We never said we were not going to cover the president, we will do our best to cover him each and every day. We were actually positioned in this spot last year when the president was here, long before all of this back and forth over access to The White House began as it did on Friday,” she said. “And we will continue to cover the president, despite their efforts to block CNN from accessing The White House grounds, as we are currently fighting in court.”
On Friday, Trump announced he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from WH press pools due to their coverage of “fake news.” In turn, the trio of news outlets sued his administration on Monday for violating both the First and Fifth Amendments, in addition to filing a temporary restraining order.
“This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes,” they shared in a joint statement. “Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”
Collins has often found herself on the receiving end of Trump’s ire during his second term as president, referring to her as “very dumb and unhappy” just this month. She does not appear to be impacted by his opinion.
