CNN’s Kara Swisher Cuts Deep at Trump Over Kaitlan Collins Meltdown — And Why She ‘Got Under His Skin’

Podcaster and CNN contributor Kara Swisher dropped a nuke on President Donald Trump over his attack on CNN anchor and senior White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins with a provocative suggestion for why her questioning “got under his skin.”

The president flipped out on Collins as he took questions during a signing ceremony Tuesday afternoon, raging at her for asking about concerns from survivors over the rollout of the newest Epstein Files dump.

On Tuesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins replayed the confrontation, noting that rather than address those concerns, “the president instead lashed out when I asked him about it.”

She then asked Swisher what she made “of how he was just shrugging off the concerns that survivors have.”

Swisher opened by suggesting that the question set Trump off because the group of survivors includes “possible survivors of Donald Trump”:

COLLINS: Kara, I just wonder, beyond the attacks–

KARA SWISHER: Yes. Wow.

COLLINS: –what you made of how he was just shrugging off the concerns that survivors have here? Not me. It’s the survivors who have raised this.

SWISHER: Which is what you talked about, including possible survivors of Donald Trump, right? I mean, I think of all these people, in these files, which is really disturbing, I think you really got under his skin because of that. And so, he decided to take personal attacks on you, which were, whatever, you know, this — it was just ridiculous.

But one of the things — I think about what Governor Hochul from New York just put out on social media, which is, President Trump wants to turn the page, except he’s on the next one and the next one.

And so, I think you’re absolutely right to raise that question of what got released and what needs to be released. And now that we’re halfway there, we should do the whole thing. And it’s been — you know, it’s been an important thing to do in this country, given the web of power happening here, and the abuse of people by very wealthy and connected people.

COLLINS: Yes, it also kind of seemed to shed some light into his mindset of all of this, which is, I mean, he views things through the lens of how it affects him, obviously.

And he was saying that the only thing it — the release proved was that there was a conspiracy against him, because Michael Wolff, the author, and Jeffrey Epstein, had been emailing about him.

I mean, obviously, that was not the takeaway most people had from what they read on Friday night.

SWISHER: No. No, of course not. But that’s what he does, is a reality distortion field of his own making, and it’s just not true.

People are interested in this, because it does show that elites have — sort of aren’t accountable, that they are not bound by the law in any way.

And so — and again, where are the prosecutions here? Where are the — what happens next? He seems entirely unconcerned about bringing justice for the victims, which you were asking about, quite correctly, and trying very hard to maintain — I don’t — I couldn’t have done what you did there, Kaitlan. I would have — I just wouldn’t have been able to.

COLLINS: I mean, we just — we’ve had so many survivors here on the show. We’ve spoken to so many of them. They have been so–

SWISHER: Yes.

COLLINS: –candid and honest about things that they don’t want to talk about frankly, and relive.

SWISHER: No. No.

COLLINS: And, I mean, that’s what I was keeping in mind.

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

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!