Trans actress Dylan Mulvaney is seemingly lending her support to CNN reporter and anchor Kaitlan Collins after President Donald Trump compared the two women during the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
On Saturday, July 25, Mulvaney, 29, shared an inspirational quote attributed to former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt via her Instagram Stories — the same quote Collins, 34, shared via Instagram in a recap of the annual fundraiser meant to celebrate the First Amendment — in an apparent nod to the reporter.
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” the quote read. The actress added three white heart emojis in the since-vanished post, per People.
Collins, a frequent target of the president’s ire, received an award for her coverage of the notoriously contentious Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday, July 24, during the dinner, which was moved to the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, D.C., after the April security breach and shooting at the originally scheduled event.
After Collins received her award, Trump, 80, took aim at the reporter — first degrading her reporting before making disparaging comments about her looks and comparing her to Mulvaney.
“It’s a fake — she shouldn’t get the award, it was a fake,” Trump said at the time. “But I don’t mind, I said, ‘Kaitlan, congratulations.’ But it was fake, there’s no question about it. She’s a young, attractive woman. She never smiles. I said, ‘Kaitlan, do you ever smile? Smile. You have a nice position, you’re at CNN fake news, you should be a happy person. So smile, Kaitlan, just smile.”
He continued, “I thought Kaitlan had really made it big with a major new sponsorship, but then I informed that it wasn’t her on the Bud Light can, it was Dylan Mulvaney.”
Us reached out to the White House at the time for comment.
In the wake of the president’s latest attack on Collins, CNN issued a statement standing by the network anchor and her reporting.
“Kaitlan Collins is an exceptional, trusted journalist being honored tonight for her depth of knowledge and the context she provides to audiences all over the world,” a CNN spokesperson said in a written statement shared with Us. “She reports every day from the White House and the field with real strength and tenacity and skillfully brings that reporting to the anchor chair and CNN platforms every day. We stand by her to the fullest extent.”
