CNN primetime host and White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins appeared on Thursday's Late Night with Seth Meyers and whimsically discussed how world leaders make fun of Trump for dragging them into hour-long news conferences, which is not the norm with the press.
She implied how anti-Trump the reporters are by saying it was like "blood in the water" and "total mayhem" when they realized he might call on any reporter, and not read from a list.
As Collins explained, it's generally called a "two and two" with world leaders -- two questions from American reporters and two from the country of the world leader. Trump didn't observe that with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
But the tremendous irony of this conversation is that Team Biden held very few press conferences -- including skipping the ones with world leaders. When it happened, he not only had a list of who to call on -- we saw evidence he knew the question that was coming. Neither of these liberals is going to give Trump any credit for granting more unfettered access to the press. Instead, we get mockery and violent metaphors.
Pile on that irony that when Team Biden skipped a Super Bowl interview with Biden -- one of the fluffiest annual interviews -- they chose to let Seth Meyers do a fluffy interview instead.
Earlier in the interview, Collins recalled how they didn't have to work weekend under Biden (he typically retreated to Delaware and refused to tell the press who visited). "I remember when Biden first took office in January, The New York Times wrote this story about how quiet the weekends were." The Times called that "historically coy." They don't really care about access or transparency with Democrats. They act like....teammates.
There's a different vibe to a Trump press conference.
KAITLAN COLLINS: It was like blood in the water. Like everyone realized he could call on anyone...,it was like total mayhem. But you could see everyone realize this is a freewheeling kind of press conference. It’s not just going to be two questions and then they’re out. And so everyone was standing up trying to get a question. And it just, you know, kind of.
SETH MEYERS: Do you feel like even in a case like that, Netanyahu’s realizing this isn’t– this is a whole new rodeo?
COLLINS: What with world – I think world leaders are always trying to adjust to being with Trump. [Mild laughter] I mean, this was famous during his first term where Boris Johnson and Justin Trudeau were seen on camera at a summit, kind of making fun of it because they’ll do these, you know, meetings, the world leaders. Reporters normally come in for 30s and then leave.
But Trump would speak for like an hour in front of the world leader who’s just sitting there while he’s answering questions on whatever. And you can always see the world leaders, kind of their faces.
MEYERS: Yeah.
COLLINS: And I was watching Netanyahu the other night when Trump was talking about the US taking over Gaza, which stunned a lot of people in the room. I mean, reporters, you can you start to hear like the clicks on the keyboard, like going wild.
But I was watching Netanyahu looking at all the advisers, top – the faces like there in the front row, just kind of, you know, with this bewildered expression on his face.
MEYERS: Because that maybe hadn’t been a conversation that had previously happened with the two of them.
COLLINS: I don’t know if he realized how much Trump was going to lean into it. Yeah.
She added she was watching Netanyahu's face as Trump started talking about transforming Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East.
At least Collins admitted that in the second term so far, it's more organized and there's less backstage fighting and leaking from factions in the West Wing.
