‘Young beautiful woman, never smiles’: Trump attacks journalist again amid battle for CNN

Washington: When Donald Trump targeted CNN journalist Kaitlan Collins in the Oval Office this week, his words struck a familiar, gendered refrain.

“CNN is a very corrupt organisation, with a corrupt reporter standing right there,” he said on Wednesday. “Never smiles. She’s a young, beautiful woman, never smiles. I never see a smile off her face. I see her standing there with hatred in her eyes.”

The cable news anchor, who is one of the most well-known and respected political journalists in the US, had not asked a question or uttered a word at that point in the news conference.

Later, when Collins asked about the cancellation of Trump’s $US1.8 billion ($2.5 billion) compensation fund for supposed victims of government weaponisation by the Democrats, the president again turned on her.

“People like you have abused our people so badly,” he said. “You should be ashamed of yourself. You used to be a conservative. She was a conservative from Alabama, can you believe it.”

Collins then made her only protest: “I’m still from Alabama.”

The interaction added to a number of incidents where Trump has targeted female journalists, including telling a Bloomberg News reporter “quiet, piggy” as she attempted to ask about the Jeffrey Epstein issue.

But Trump also made an instructive aside that speaks to a simmering issue in the US media landscape: the $US111 billion merger between David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance – which already owns CBS – and Warner Bros Discovery, the owner of CNN.

The deal was approved by shareholders earlier this year, but still requires approval by federal and international regulators.

Trump has made no secret of the fact he hopes Ellison – with whom he is close – will radically change CNN’s coverage, which is generally regarded as slightly left-leaning, though less so than in times past.

“Now they have new ownership so maybe it’ll straighten it out,” he said while criticising Collins. “I doubt it. It’s hard to straighten garbage out.” The remark appeared almost like a challenge to Ellison.

Opposition to the merger is growing, both legally and politically. Paramount is seeking to dismiss a California lawsuit that claims the merger would violate the Clayton Antitrust Act, which bars mergers that significantly reduce competition.

In Congress, a group of Democratic senators led by Massachusetts’ Elizabeth Warren wrote to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday noting that the deal would involve $US24 billion in finance from sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.

“This funding structure could provide foreign en