Jake Tapper just called “fake news” on President Trump getting so outraged over CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins’ pool questions that she was banned from a later event at the White House.
Tapper told Stephen Colbert Thursday that Collins is a “great reporter,” and defended her queries on behalf of fellow TV reporters. Then the newsman got right down to mockery.
“First of all, just step back for a second and just contemplate the notion that anyone associated with President Trump thinking that a reporter is rude,” Tapper quipped. “The idea that there is a delicate decorum: ‘That’s not how we conduct ourselves in this White House.’”
Watch the video above.
On Wednesday, Collins shouted a series of tough questions at Trump while he sat in the Oval Office with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. Though Trump was meeting Juncker for tough trade talks, Collins wasn’t much interested in that topic.
Among the questions she shouted at the president, according to CNN’s Brian Stelter, included:
“Did Michael Cohen betray you, Mr. President?”
“Are you worried about what is on the other tapes?”
“Why is Vladimir Putin not accepting your invitation?”
The inquiries were pertinent to the recent news stories surrounding the president and his former personal attorney Michael Cohen, but it was too much for Trump, who banned Collins from an impromptu Rose Garden event between Trump and Juncker later that day.
White House communications chief Bill Shine and press secretary Sarah Sanders told Collins that her questions were “inappropriate.”
In their own statement, CNN ripped the president and blasted the decision as “retaliatory.”
“Just because the White House is uncomfortable with a question regarding the news of the day, doesn’t mean the question isn’t relevant and shouldn’t be asked,” CNN said in a statement. “This decision to bar a member of the press is retaliatory in nature and not indicative of a free and open press. We demand better.”