CNN officials and journalists responded sharply after President Donald Trump used part of his remarks at Friday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner to mock CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins, including a joke that compared her to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

The rescheduled dinner was held at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington. The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is traditionally organized around the Washington press corps and includes awards recognizing political journalism, making Trump’s remarks about a reporter who had just been honored a focal point of the evening. According to The Daily Beast, Trump turned his attention to Collins about 10 minutes into his speech. Collins had just received the White House Correspondents’ Association’s Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure for her reporting on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s February 2025 Oval Office confrontation with Trump. The president dismissed the award as “fake.”

“She’s a young, attractive woman,” Trump told the audience. “She never smiles. 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 then suggested Collins had secured a major sponsorship before saying the person on the Bud Light can was actually Mulvaney, a reference to the 2023 conservative boycott of the beer brand. The comment was reportedly met with near silence.

“That was an appalling hit at our colleague Kaitlan Collins,” CNN’s Betsy Klein said in response.

CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter noted that a statement from Collins’ team was already circulating before Trump had finished speaking. “And the fact that CNN had a statement supporting Kaitlan ready to go... in advance... tells you everything about this media moment,” Stelter wrote.

CNN Chief National Affairs Correspondent Jeff Zeleny pointed to the contrast between Trump’s frequent criticism of the press and his appearance at an event centered on journalists. “For a president who complains so bitterly about the press, there’s never been anyone in the history of the modern presidency who spends as much time talking to reporters,” Zeleny wrote.

CNN’s Kristen Holmes also criticized Trump’s relationship with the press. “In addition to how much he speaks to the press, he is also one of the most unreliable sources at the White House,” she said.

Trump’s remark about Collins smiling was not the first time he had publicly focused on her facial expressions. In June, he said she had “hatred in her eyes” and called her a “corrupt reporter.” His latest comments landed amid a long-running adversarial relationship between Trump and CNN, a network he has repeatedly labeled “fake news” while continuing to engage with its reporters in White House settings.

Friday’s event was Trump’s first White House Correspondents’ Dinner as president. The dinner had originally been scheduled for April but was postponed after a gunman breached security outside the ballroom. The scaled-down event drew about 700 guests, around one-quarter of the original expected attendance. Earlier in the evening, the 80-year-old president was also seen repeatedly closing his eyes for extended periods while awards were being presented.