Caitlin Collins

speaker

180 appearances 14 recordings 10 series first heard Jan 2025 last heard 13 Feb

Caitlin Collins’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in Feb 2026 with 2.

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The New Yorker Radio Hour · Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job · 21 Mar 2025 podcast

If you watch the interaction, it's not as sensational as the New York Post makes it seem. I think they just do that for clicks. Two, I think that there's a job to do for each of us in terms of her job is to spin for her boss. I mean, people will disagree if you're the press secretary, what your role is. But as a Trump spokesperson, that is your job. And my job is to ask questions and get answers.

And there's always a natural tension between the press secretary for anyone and the press that covers them. And Trump watches these briefings really closely. He handed Caroline Lovett, had someone pass her a note in the middle of a briefing the other day, and asked her to highlight a pole. And that was while she was out at the podium. And so that was notable.

But I think the third thing is, and this has always been my mantra kind of since round one, it's not about me. And if you let them make it about you, I think you're losing. And so whenever I'm in there... I'm not trying to get in an argument or engage in some kind of fight. You know, I'm going to ask my questions and I'm going to be persistent.

And so I think that's always important to remember is that, you know, it's not about you.

Being on Twitter is a vastly different environment than it was before. when I was covering Trump eight years ago. And eight years ago, I found it to be more useful in terms of disagreement and engagement. That's not the case anymore, really. It's certainly much more shifted to the right. And so certainly the response I see on there is way different now than it was eight years ago.

I know everyone says this, but it truly is not the real world because I'll see one narrative on there and then I'll be out living my life and talking to sources or random people in the airports and, you know, just anywhere. And it's a completely different view and lens. It's really remarkable, actually.

Or it's like tips on cooking or something. I know. There's such different social media environments. But you do see how people can have their beliefs reinforced so easily by going online and choosing their platform. My dad will see things on Facebook about me and then call me to ask if it's true sometimes. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's just so funny. My dad's like, I saw this.

And, you know, it just shows you that people can choose their own narratives.

I can see completely different worldviews of something. The Zelensky meeting is a really good example. I was in the Oval Office for that because CNN was the pool that day. And we knew it would be tense. We knew it would be noteworthy. We had no idea that it was going to be like that. I mean, in that room, a pin could have dropped and no one was saying a word except the three of them.

And then hearing how other people saw it, either people who were on the left or not in touch with the news or on the right, it was remarkable just to see how people's views of it were from what they saw on social media, in the news, in the headlines, and whatnot.

What happened for people who don't aren't in the weeds on this, is the White House took over the White House Correspondents Association, which is its own independent entity's responsibilities of determining the pool and the rotation every day, which is who's in it for TV, who's in it for radio, who's in it for print.

And the point of the pool is just that, you know, 30 reporters can't go with the president wherever he goes. What's different, though, is they're adding people in. And so you'll go in and there are people from right-leaning broadcast or outlets that are included in addition to the regular pool.

The main difference and one that I disagree with is blocking the Associated Press from being part of that pool. Typically, they would go in every single day with the wires. And they have not let them in as they're in their court fight. The AP is suing. Trump changes the name of the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. They did not identify that.

And my question, as I asked at the briefing when this all happened, was it's retaliatory in nature.

But isn't it retaliatory in nature, is the argument, because the reason that the AP was barred, which they said was because they're not using the phrase Gulf of America, they're using Gulf of Mexico in line with their standards.

And so the question here is, is this setting a precedent that this White House will retaliate against reporters who don't use the language that you guys believe reporters should use? And how does that align with the First Amendment commitment that you were just talking about? I was in the briefing yesterday and the Associated Press reporter who was in there got a question.

And so they're not, it's not a complete block on them. The question is really whether or not the White House has changed since then to where they now control the pool. That is the question here in terms of whether or not they are ultimately successful here.

I was the president, technically. Okay, you were. It is a serious organization, and they don't play favorites. And when I ran for president, you run, it's a three-year term. You know, I had to run a really competitive race. And what you do as part of that race that actually was really beneficial to me was you have to call hundreds of members of the WHCA and solicit their views, get their feedback.

What do they not like? What do they like? It's a real race. I have like a newfound respect for politicians, which I don't generally say after running it because it was really difficult. And so this would have been my year to be the president. I moved to New York for two years, and so I had to relinquish the role, unfortunately. But the WHCA is not playing favorites or not blocking certain outlets.

They just take it really seriously because the jobs of being in the pool are very serious. You could be in the pool on a day like 9-11. You could be in the pool on a day that there's an attempted assassination.

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