President Donald Trump spotted CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in the crowd at his Ohio rally Saturday and turned a campaign speech into another round of personal attacks on the White House correspondent, telling the audience to boo her before calling her “such an unhappy person.”
The moment drew cheers from Trump’s supporters, but social media critics quickly turned the insult back on the president, accusing him of appearing consumed by Collins.
One critic called the president “the biggest complainer and whiner in the world.”
Another warned that Trump’s repeated public attacks could have consequences, writing, “The way he is calling Collin’s out is very dangerous and he knows it.”
Trump’s latest attack came as he took his midterm campaign into Ohio, one of the most closely watched Senate battlegrounds in the country, but much of the attention quickly shifted to his fixation on a reporter he has repeatedly targeted.
The confrontation also came as Trump’s administration is fighting CNN and two other news organizations in court over their access to the White House, giving his personal attacks on Collins a broader backdrop involving the president’s increasingly contentious relationship with the press.
Trump singled Collins out during the rally in the Dayton suburb of Vandalia and goaded the crowd into booing her. He then attacked her appearance and demeanor, saying, “She’s such an unhappy person. She never smiles. She’s a very unhappy person.”
Other voices online focused less on the substance of Trump’s comments than on the apparent intensity behind them.
One social-media reaction declared, “He is SO JEALOUS OF KAITLAN COLLINS… she is so cool; she won’t stoop down to his level.. He is PISSED!!”
Another called the dynamic simply, “He’s obsessed with her and it’s deeply weird.”
The Ohio appearance was part of Trump’s planned 32-day push ahead of the Nov. 3 elections.
After spending several days campaigning in heavily Republican states, including Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama, Trump moved into Ohio, where Republicans are defending a Senate seat that Democrats view as essential to any path toward taking control of the chamber.
Republican Sen. Jon Husted, whom Ohio appointed to the Senate after JD Vance became vice president, is running to keep the seat, according to PBS. Former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is trying to return to the Senate after losing to Republican Bernie Moreno two years ago.
But Trump’s feud with Collins has increasingly followed him beyond the campaign trail.
Last week, Trump encountered Collins at the United Nations after he barred CNN from the White House. Collins had been credentialed by the U.N. and shouted a question at Trump about the Iran war.
“Mr. President, two-thirds of Americans, two-thirds of Americans don’t think the U.S. is winning the war with Iran. When will it end?”
Trump immediately objected to CNN’s presence.
“It’s an honor to be here. I’m surprised CNN is here covering me. You shouldn’t be here. You should not be here covering me,” he said.
Collins responded, “The United Nations allowed us in, sir.”
Trump continued: “You should not be here covering me. You said you weren’t going to cover me. You shouldn’t be covering me.”
The exchange followed another uncomfortable encounter at the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner in July, when Trump publicly mocked Collins after she received an award for her reporting on his confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“I want to personally congratulate CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on receiving her award,” Trump said. “It was all about me. It’s a fake — she shouldn’t get the award; it was a fake. But I didn’t mind; I said, ‘Kaitlan, congratulations.’ But it was fake; there’s no question about it.”
He then returned to the same complaint about her smile.
“She’s a young, attractive woman. She never smiles,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Kaitlan, do you ever smile? Smile. You have a nice position; you’re at CNN, fake news; you should be a happy person. So, smile, Kaitlan, just smile.’”
Trump’s line drew silence from the crowd as he continued talking about the controversy.
The attacks come amid a much larger fight between Trump’s administration and the news media.
CNN, MS NOW, and Politico sued after the White House barred the organizations from access, while other television networks declined to replace CNN in the rotating White House press pool.
A federal judge ruled last Thursday that the ban was likely unconstitutional, meaning that the administration had to let them operate, at least for now. The White House, meanwhile, has continued restricting CNN’s participation in the press pool, including barring the network from traveling with Trump on Saturday.
The Justice Department argues that Trump should keep the restrictions because he deemed the outlets’ stories a threat to national security. The news organizations have called the ban an “unlawful assault on the most fundamental First Amendment freedoms.”
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