CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins is back in President Donald Trump’s crosshairs, this time over a cutting remark aimed at her appearance.
During his White House Correspondents’ Dinner address on Friday night, Trump likened Collins to transgender social media personality Dylan Mulvaney, drawing a fresh round of attention to his long-running feud with the CNN journalist.
The criticism continued into the weekend. On Sunday, Trump returned to the comparison on Truth Social, again tying the CNN star’s image to Mulvaney.
In the post, he shared an edited picture showing Collins’s face placed onto Mulvaney’s body from the Bud Light campaign that went viral in April 2023 and turned the influencer into a national flashpoint.
That Bud Light promotion sparked widespread boycotts and a fierce conservative backlash against the American beer brand, a controversy from which the company has only recently begun to rebound.
Collins appeared to respond to Trump’s first swipe on Friday with a pointed message online, writing: “The second best part of last night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner was receiving an award from my friend and mentor, @wolfblitzer.”
She followed that by saying “the first was reminding everyone why the First Amendment—and asking uncomfortable questions that people in power don’t like—matters,” a remark widely read as a subtle response to Trump’s attack.
Trump and Collins have clashed repeatedly during Oval Office press events, and the president used his Friday night remarks to take multiple digs at one of CNN’s most recognizable White House reporters.
Trump shared an image of Collins’s face superimposed on Mulvaney’s body in the viral Bud Light advertisement that catapulted the trans influencer to notoriety in April 2023
Trump spoke at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Washington DC, on Friday, July 24, 2026, in Washington
‘I thought Kaitlan had really made it big with a major new sponsorship,’ Trump said of Collins.
‘But then I informed her that it wasn’t her on the Bud Light can, it was Dylan Mulvaney.’
Mulvaney has been open with her fans about her facial feminization surgery during her transition from male to female. She also starred in her autobiographical Off-Broadway show ‘The Least Problematic Woman in the World’ in 2025.
Bud Light suffered a huge drop in sales in 2023 after Mulvaney shared images of herself with a custom beer can as part of a marketing campaign, which also marked his first full year transitioning.
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The promotion detonated a backlash that quickly grew into a full-scale boycott, fueled by conservative outrage, which was amplified across social media and right-wing news outlets.
Trump’s clashes with Collins have been ongoing for many years.
Collins recently drew Trump’s ire during an exchange in the Oval Office when she asked the President about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump told Collins to smile more during the exchange, which went viral and led to her appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
The 33-year-old Collins recalled being taunted by Trump in the Oval Office earlier this month after she asked what he would say to Jeffrey Epstein’s survivors.
‘You know she’s a young woman,’ the president told a room of Republican lawmakers and reporters, then turned to Collins directly: ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. I’ve known you for 10 years, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile.’
Trump delivered remarks at the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) Dinner on Friday, which was rescheduled from April after another assassination attempt on Trumps’ life
President Trump, left, looks on as CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, center, hugs fellow CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins at Friday’s White House Correspondents’ dinner where she won an award
She insisted at the time that it’s hardly controversial to stay serious when asking about Epstein’s sexual assault victims.
Collins told Colbert she wasn’t surprised ‘in the moment of attack,’ as Trump regularly tries to ‘deflect’ from difficult questions, though she pushed back against his ‘smile’ jab.
‘I don’t think it’s a controversial opinion that you shouldn’t smile when you’re asking questions about a sex trafficker and sexual assault victims,’ she told Colbert.
The Late Show audience erupted in applause at her comment, and she added that she smiles, just ‘when it’s appropriate.’
She said this wasn’t the first time Trump had resorted to name-calling or ‘going after’ her to avoid conversations about the convicted pedophile.
‘He is someone who is often politically savvy or tied in with what his base wants. In that moment, I was thinking if he had said that in response to a different question, I think it would have had a different reaction,’ Collins explained at the time.
