Every Member Of Trump's Administration CNN's Kaitlan Collins Has Gone Toe To Toe With

CNN's Kaitlan Collins has been locked in a bitter feud with Donald Trump ever since he first stepped into office back in 2016. After the journalist lobbed several, ultimately unanswered questions about Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, and Vladimir Putin, in 2018, she was barred from attending an event at the Rose Garden later in the day. According to Collins, then-Chief of Staff Communications Bill Shine and then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders informed her that "the questions [she] asked were inappropriate for that venue," (via CNN). 

The reporter was also scolded for yelling, but Collins' tone wasn't much different from others in the room. In January 2019, Collins called Trump out once again for his false promise that Mexico would pay for the wall around the border, which he previously announced would be made of concrete. The president dodged the first part of the question and then adopted a condescending tone to tell her steel would do the job better. Trump and Collins continued to butt heads throughout his first administration and beyond. 

When she questioned the divisive politician about his classified documents case in May 2023, Trump used one of his favorite insults and decried her as a "nasty person" (via YouTube). Before taking a question from Collins about his immigration policy claims in April 2025, Trump called her a "low-rated anchor" (via YouTube). He also criticized the veteran journalist for never expressing any gratitude for keeping supposed criminals away from the U.S., further snarking, "That's why nobody watches you anymore. You have no credibility." While she caught Trump's ire during his second term too, Collins also ruffled the feathers of his inner circle by taking multiple shots at them.

In 2025, we sensed a nasty feud brewing between Kaitlan Collins and Karoline Leavitt simply because they kept butting heads in the initial months of Donald Trump's second term. In February 2025, the president stated that the Associated Press wouldn't be allowed in the Oval Office or Air Force One until they abided by the executive order he signed and started referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. 

When Collins questioned Leavitt about the precedent that The White House had set for the press with the controversial move, she responded, "I was very upfront in my briefing on day one that if we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable," (via X, formerly known as Twitter). Then, the White House Press Secretary listed prominent authority figures that had already labeled the water body the Gulf of America. 

In January, the CNN reporter questioned the legality of Trump going against Congress' spending laws for the sake of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and his decision to ignore civil service protections to fire DOJ officials who worked on probes against him. "How is the administration deciding which laws to follow and which ones to ignore?" Collins wondered (via YouTube). But Leavitt stood her ground, reasoning that the president hadn't violated the law in either case. In March, Leavitt and Collins had a heated exchange that didn't help their reputations. Given all this, it's unsurprising that there were rumors that Leavitt had banned Collins from press briefings.

One of JD Vance's most brutal moments on CNN came when he sat down for a chat with Kaitlan Collins following the second presidential debate in September 2024. The reporter managed to get under Vance's skin almost immediately by demanding to know how he could continue to encourage people to spread the story of illegal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating the pets of residents after acknowledging that it could be false. The vice president insisted that they had received reports of the claims, and even authorities only said that "they don't have all the evidence," (via CNN).

Collins interjected to clarify that they had actually said they "had no evidence" to back up the offensive claims, but Vance ignored her, positing that journalists like her should cover such stories and give voice to people's problems. Later, Collins even questioned if he would tell the world that Bigfoot was real if his office received reports of sightings, adding, "You have a sense of responsibility as a running mate [...] to not promote false information." 

Notably, the Ohio Senator and Collins butted heads even before he joined the Republican ticket. When the CNN reporter interviewed him in May 2024, she wondered how Donald Trump's supposed support of January 6 rioters who were chanting "hang Mike Pence" made him feel about potentially being his replacement. "Did a few people say some bad things? Sure," Vance conceded. "But do we blame Donald Trump for every bad thing that's ever been said by a participant in American democracy? I think that's an absurd standard." 

Following Donald Trump's heated exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat down for a chat with Kaitlan Collins for CNN. Throughout the interview, Rubio consistently criticized Zelenskyy for refusing to have realistic demands for his peacemaking talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, at one point, Collins interrupted to remind Rubio that he previously professed that he wouldn't trust Putin to follow through with the promises he made, and the Ukrainian president had made the same argument in his chat with Trump. 

The Secretary of State responded by confirming that they were following a "trust but verify" approach to get a better outcome from the negotiations. Additionally, he gushed about the president's phenomenal deal-making skills, confidently arguing that he wouldn't be easily deceived by false promises. Elsewhere in the supremely awkward interview, Collins also reminded the White House staffer that he had called Putin "a war criminal" and a "butcher," adding, "You said that as a Secretary of State, you do believe it's important for someone with such global influence as you have to speak with that kind of moral clarity." 

Rubio pointed out that his job at the time was to foster peacekeeping between Ukraine and Russia. Collins also managed to ruffle Rubio's feathers when she asked Trump about his administration mistakenly deporting alleged MS-13 member Kilmar Ábrego García to an El Salvador prison. The Secretary of State seemed irritated, saying he was unsure why Collins was confused about an illegal immigrant being deported to his homeland.

Shortly after Donald Trump took office in January 2025, his administration got rid of policies that prevented ICE officers from arresting migrants at churches and schools. Trump's Border Czar, Tom Homan, subsequently spoke to Kaitlan Collins for CNN, and she quizzed him on how the drastic changes could help the U.S. accomplish its goals of removing undocumented immigrants from the country. Homan reasoned that it sent a clear message to the illegal immigrants that they didn't have a "safe haven" here. 

He also proclaimed teens in American schools were MS-13 members who were selling drugs to their classmates and robbing them. When Collins mentioned how the policy changes could instill fear in parents with school-going kids, Homan rationalized that anybody who chooses to stay in the U.S. illegally should be afraid. The reporter also probed into the government's decision to use $250,000 of taxpayer money for the transportation of illegal immigrants in a military plane instead of a far cheaper charter plane. 

While Homan admitted that it was costly to safeguard national security, he explained that they had multiple planes to accomplish the task. When the border czar spoke to Collins for CNN again in April 2025, she questioned him about Kilmar Ábrego García's deportation. When Homan insisted that they followed protocol with their decision, she pointed out that the Trump administration had "admitted in court that he was mistakenly deported, that he should not have been deported." The White House suggested that they were likely referring to "an administrative error" since their decision was correct from an enforcer's standpoint.

When Kaitlan Collins brought up the possibility of Kilmar Ábrego García returning to the United States during Donald Trump's chat with El Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele, Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller jumped to the divisive politician's defense. "It's very arrogant even for American media to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens," Miller spat (via YouTube). The Homeland Security advisor went on to argue that García's alleged ties with MS-13 made him a foreign terrorist, and they had subsequently deported him according to federal laws. Later, Miller claimed that Collins would have moved homes if García started living near her. 

The CNN reporter had a similarly tense exchange with Donald Trump Jr. at the vice presidential debate in October 2024. While discussing his father's Pennsylvania rally shooting, he suggested that the media ought to carry some of the blame for radicalizing people like the assassin. In response, Collins pointed out that there was no evidence to support his claim and, moreover, journalists had no desire for his life to be endangered. 

"When someone calls — and allows — people to have a platform to call someone literally Hitler every day for nine years, it creates it, whether you want to believe it or not," Don Jr. asserted, per the Independent. Of course, the veteran journalist refused to back down, even managing to get a dig in at Don Jr. by pointing out that Trump's own VP pick, JD Vance, had called him "America's Hitler" years before joining the Republican ticket.