CNN's Kaitlan Collins Offers Rare Praise to Trump Administration After Saudi Arabian Incident
It’s not exactly a secret that CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and the administration of President Donald Trump are not on the best of terms.
(She’s particularly adept at drawing the ire of Trump himself.)
But that frosty relationship didn’t stop the president’s press secretary from sticking up for Collins during a tense moment abroad.
According to Fox News, Collins spent a chunk of time during her appearance on Heather McMahan’s “Absolutely Not” podcast to laud Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday.
“I asked a shouted question to President Trump, who had seen me when the U.S. press came in,” Collins explained. “He didn’t answer, which is, I mean, that’s how it works. You shout questions. They either answer or they don’t — it’s their prerogative. And then the world leaders left the room.”
That innocuous exchange — which is rather common to anyone who’s watched a U.S. government news conference — apparently rattled the Saudis.
“The Saudi Royal Guard kind of freaked out because I dared to ask a question,” Collins said. “And they’re not used to that there because they don’t have a free press.”
The Saudis were so shaken that they would eventually tell Collins that she was not allowed to attend the next press event.
When Collins pushed back, the Saudis doubled down on barring her.
Enter Karoline Leavitt.
“I could see them like, whispering, and pointing about me,” Collins said. “And some of the younger White House staff, they are with the press, weren’t really sure what to do, and they went to Karoline and, to her credit, she said, ‘No, Kaitlan’s coming in with the rest of the U.S. press,’ and we went in,” Collins recalled.
“And, so, it didn’t become this huge issue.”
Collins would then double down on her praise for Leavitt, citing a bit of patriotic camaraderie.
“So, to her credit, she, without a doubt, was like, ‘No, you’re coming in,'” Collins told McMahan. “Which I do think is important in that moment, especially when you’re kind of the U.S. contingent abroad, and we don’t do things like they do in Saudi Arabia.”
Collins added that the previous Trump administration had similarly supported her during a visit to the Korean Demilitarized Zone.
While Collins is often characterized as a thorn in the side of the current presidential administration — and perhaps accurately so, if you ask the president — the CNN reporter often gets under the skin of Democrats, too.
From Jasmine Crockett and Hakeem Jeffries to the more fringe-far left of the Democratic Party, Collins has visibly annoyed all of them with her lines of questioning.
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