CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Struck By Trump Maybe Blowing Off Son’s Wedding: ‘Really Something’

CNN anchor and senior White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins was struck by President Donald Trump’s response when he was asked if he’d be attending First Son Donald Trump Jr.’s upcoming wedding this weekend.

The president’s oldest son is marrying Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson in a “small” ceremony on an island in the Bahamas this weekend — but insiders told CNN White House correspondent Alayna Treene that Trump will not be there.

That’s entirely consistent with the response Trump gave when he was asked about the wedding in the Oval Office on Thursday — a not-very-encouraging one.

On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, a clearly amused Collins played the full exchange and told her panel that the president’s answer was “really something”:

K. COLLINS: For a lot of parents, their children’s wedding is a can’t- miss event. But this is how President Trump answered today when he was asked if he is attending his son’s wedding this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Are you attending your son’s wedding this weekend, by the way?

TRUMP: He’d like me to go, but it’s going to be just a small little private affair, and I’m going to try and make it. I’m in the midst — I said, you know, this is not good timing for me. I have a thing called Iran and other things.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: That’s one I can’t win on. If I do attend, I get killed. If I don’t attend, I get killed. By the fake news, of course, I’m talking about. Now — but he’s got a very — a person who I’ve known for a long time, and hopefully they’re going to have a great marriage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

K. COLLINS: The President’s no-win scenario, as he put it, is his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding, to the Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson, this weekend. Sources tell CNN it’s taking place on a small island in the Bahamas.

And on that note, my sources here tonight are:

New York Times White House correspondent, Shawn McCreesh.

Former communications director to Vice President Harris, Jamal Simmons.

And host of the Off the Cupp podcast, S.E. Cupp.

Shawn, obviously, you never know what the President’s going to say when you ask him a question in the Oval Office. But that answer today was really something.

SHAWN MCCREESH: I thought it was hilarious. And you know, it was honest. He’s basically like, I’m damned if I do, I’m damned if I don’t, and you know.

JAMAL SIMMONS: But he’s not though.

S.E. CUPP: But he’s not.

SIMMONS: It’s his son’s wedding.

CUPP: We’d all think it was OK.

SIMMONS: Right.

CUPP: Right? Like that’s the thing. This is the thing we’d all be like, Of course, you should go to your son’s wedding. Maybe golf less when you’re at war with Iran. But like this, for sure go.

SIMMONS: And they’ve got phones in Bahamas. I’m sure the WHCA can figure out how to put the phones in, so he–

K. COLLINS: Which is the White House Communications Agency.

SIMMONS: Yes, that’s right, yes.

MCCREESH: I think if you flew to a small island in the Bahamas this weekend or Monday, there’d be a little uproar.

K. COLLINS: You think so?

SIMMONS: As long as it wasn’t that island.

CUPP: Yes.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.

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