Anderson Cooper blasts Trump for going after Kaitlan Collins: ‘That doesn’t happen to men’

WASHINGTON, DC: CNN's Anderson Cooper slammed President Donald Trump after the commander-in-chief took aim at his colleague Kaitlan Collins during an Oval Office exchange.

Trump was fielding questions when he pivoted mid-answer to go after Collins, who was standing just feet away.

Trump lashes out at Kaitlan Collins

The question on deck was why he “decided to drop the Anti-Weaponization fund” created by the Department of Justice after he settled a $10 billion lawsuit he had brought against the IRS.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had told a hearing on Tuesday that the department was “not moving forward” with the fund.

Trump said, “So, I love it. I think it’s so important,” before launching into claims about political “weaponization” against him and his supporters, labeling it “fake and corrupt.”

Then things turned personal.

He singled out Collins, calling her a “young, beautiful woman” who has “hatred in her eyes.”

“Some of you will believe it, like CNN will believe is because they knew what was going on. They’re crooked as hell. CNN’s a very corrupt organization, but– with a corrupt reporter standing right there. Never smiles. You never-, she’s a young, beautiful woman. Never smiles. I never see a smile on her face; I see her standing there with hatred in her eyes,” he said.

“She has hatred because we have borders, because we have a strong military, because we cut our taxes, because we do things that everybody wanted," Trump added.

Anderson Cooper fires back on air

After airing the clip, Cooper called out the president and followed it up with a montage of Trump’s past remarks aimed at female reporters.

"I’m not asking Kaitlan about this because she’s got actual work to do, and she doesn’t need to be answering questions about this kind of behavior," he said. "That’s the president of the United States, a nearly eighty-year-old man who has no problem commenting on her physical appearance and telling her she needs to smile."

"That doesn’t happen to men. No one’s ever said that to me in an office setting," he insisted. "She was there, like every other journalist doing her job, standing around with a bunch of non-smiling men, by the way, all behind her. I don’t know if you saw that. She gets singled out. Now, this, of course, is not the first time the president has focused on professional female reporters, Kaitlan included."

Cooper then rolled a series of clips showing Trump allegedly shutting down female journalists, before bringing in reporter Tara Palmeri to unpack the pattern.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised by this. I shouldn’t be, but I just– I don’t think guys, I don’t think any guy would– It’s just bizarre that this is something he does over and over and over again,” said Cooper. “I mean, and I think people do it to women all the time.”

Tara Palmeri calls it a 'day in the life' moment

Palmeri nodded in agreement with Cooper.

“Yeah, absolutely. What you are seeing is a day in the life of a woman,” said Palmeri. “She’s a powerful woman, and he’s objectifying her, and he’s using a misogynistic comment about her appearance to belittle her.”

She went on to suggest Trump’s remarks reflected a pattern of behavior around female figures in public life, saying he wanted Collins to “be happy about his policies” and fit into an old archetype of power dynamics.

Cooper wrapped the segment with a blunt summary of what he’d just shown viewers.

“It’s incredible to watch an entire press corps of men who are not smiling, standing around the president, asking him questions, looking very glum, and it’s the women he focuses on to belittle and besmirch,” he remarked.

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.