CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Was Heroic at Trump Coronavirus Briefing and Her Fellow WH Correspondents Let Her Down Badly
CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins performed heroically at Trump’s coronavirus briefing by pressing him on the scandalous allegations of whistleblower Dr. Rick Bright, but her colleagues let her down by allowing Trump to steamroll past the tough questioning.
Thursday’s coronavirus task force briefing will be forever remembered as the day Trump decided to suggest injecting disinfectant and very powerful light into humans to combat the coronavirus, and Dr. Deborah Birx pretended he kind of had a point because fevers, or something, and no other member of the task force of medical experts jumped up to say “Don’t inject yourself with Lysol, that will kill you!”
But Trump being an idiot is news to no one. Trump demoting the government’s foremost vaccine expert as retaliation for following science — and possibly disrupting a corrupt scheme to enrich politically-connected entities by pushing potentially harmful treatments, as Bright has suggested in his public statement — would be news.
Enter Collins, who became just the third reporter to even bother asking Trump about the blockbuster allegations — CBS News’ Weijia Jiang and ABC News’ Jon Karl were each shut down by Trump when they tried to inquire — and Trump attacked her, then simply refused to answer.
Collins first tried to get Trump to explain why he was attacking CNN over a report on Kim Jong Un’s health — a report that actually, in fact, noted “a US defense official said that the US military assessment is that while they are examining reports regarding Kim’s poor health, the evidence at this point does not suggest he is incapacitated,” the same thing Trump was hoping to hear — when Trump attacked.
After dressing CNN down over a report that agreed with his own viewpoint on Kim, Trump tried to move on, but Collins persisted.
“But can I ask you a question about Rick Bright?” Collins asked, to which Trump replied “No, not CNN, please,” and told another reporter to “Go ahead.”
“The White House has not responded to these allegations, to Rick Bright,” Collins said.
“I told you, CNN is fake news. Don’t talk to me,” Trump said, but Collins would not yield. As Trump turned away from Collins, she asked her question anyway, clear as a bell.
“He says he was — but he says he was retaliated against, and that’s why he was removed from his job. Do you have a response to that?”
“Okay, next question,” Trump said, and was obliged.
No reporter stepped in to yield their time to Collins, which would have been the strong solidarity move, but even more inexcusably, not one other reporter bothered to ask the question that Trump clearly, two days in a row, vehemently did not want to have to answer.
Everyone in that room let Collins down, and they let Jiang and Karl down as well by allowing Trump to steamroll over them. But worse than that, they let down the people whose voice they are supposed to be in that room.
Watch the clip above via CNN.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
