President Donald Trump recently roasted CNN and the network’s host, Kaitlin Collins, several times during a tense interview in the Oval Office. The conversation touched on various current political events, such as GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell voting against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for HHS secretary and peace negotiations with Russia.
At one point, Trump unapologetically slammed CNN, stating that “nobody watches CNN anymore” and the network has “no credibility.” The critical comment drew laughter from other White House correspondents in the room. Trump and Collins have a history of tense exchanges in which the president has launched various insults.
Trump said about Mitch McConnell, “Well, I feel sorry for Mitch, and I was one of the people that led. He couldn’t. He wanted to go to the end, and he wanted to stay leader. He wasn’t, he’s not equipped mentally. He wasn’t equipped 10 years ago, mentally, in my opinion.” Then stated that McConnell’s political role is so easy that even Collins could do it.
Trump continued, “He let the Republican Party go to hell. If I didn’t come along, the Republican Party wouldn’t even exist right now. Mitch McConnell never really had it. He had an ability to raise money because of his position as leader, which anybody could do. You could do it even and that’s saying a lot. But the fact is that he raised money, and he gave a lot of money to senators, and so he had a little loyalty based on the fact that as leader, you can raise a lot of money.”
After Collins claimed that McConnell had polio, Trump responded, stating he knew nothing about that, pivoting back toward the political dynamic. “I don’t know anything about he had polio,” he told the CNN host. “He had polio. I have no idea if he had polio. All I can tell you about him is that he shouldn’t have been a leader. He knows that he voted against Bobby. Votes against almost everything. Now he’s a, you know, very bitter guy, and we have a very strong party, and he’s almost not even really a very powerful member.”
During another moment in the press conference, Trump was discussing whether he thought President Vladimir Putin actually wanted peace in Ukraine. “I believe he wants peace. I believe that President Putin — when I spoke to him yesterday, I mean, I know him very well — yeah, I think he wants peace. I think he would tell me if he didn’t, I think he’d like to see peace,” the president said.
“Do you trust President Putin?” Collins interrupted. “I know [Biden is] a friend of yours,” Trump fired back, before calling out her network’s ratings and journalistic integrity. “He’s a friend of CNN. That’s why nobody watches CNN anymore. Because they have no credibility.” In yet another instance, Collins interjected to ask about inflation.
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Watch Collins and Trump below:
As Trump was showing the room an order he had just signed, Collins said, “Mr. President you won the White House in part because of high inflation. If your tariffs make prices go up…” Trump, appearing irritated with Collins’ speaking out of turn, said, “Excuse me, we haven’t asked you to speak yet, please.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.