THE LIST KEEPS GROWING

Kaitlan Collins Humiliates Trump After Kennedy Center Shocker

“‘Unique’ is one word for it,” the CNN anchor said of the pro-Trump board’s vote Thursday.

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins sounded the alarm on Donald Trump’s obsession with his vanity projects after the president’s handpicked Kennedy Center board voted to put his name back up on the building.

The board’s vote is a workaround for a federal judge’s order that the center remove Trump’s name from the building’s exterior. The resolution the board approved would go beneath the signage for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, saying: “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.” The proposed lettering will likely be resolved in court as well.

WRITING’S ON THE WALL

Desperate Trump Defies Judge in Kennedy Center Vanity Battle

Farrah Tomazin

On CNN, Collins led off a segment on the matter by reviewing Trump’s second-term fixation with naming things in and around the capital after himself.

“The president’s focus has not just been on the Kennedy Center in terms of his broader push to remake Washington. It’s also his penchant for branding everything in his name,” Collins, 34, began. “That includes the gold coins, the Trump passports, the National Park passes, the Palm Beach airport—I’m not done—the banner at the Justice Department, the new class of battleships. There are many things, not just in Washington, but all across the nation now bearing the Trump name.”

Not mentioned was the U.S. Institute of Peace, which Trump put his name on nearly three months before he began the war against Iran. The 80-year-old president will also reportedly name the White House ballroom after himself—if the legally dubious project even gets completed.

Trump also wants to have the Washington Commanders’ new stadium named after himself.

Opinion

BRANDED CONTENT

The One Place Trump Doesn’t Want to See His Name

John Casey

On CNN, Collins spoke with New York Times White House Correspondent Shawn McCreesh about the Kennedy Center.

“I think what’s interesting about the Kennedy Center, it reminds me of the [Lincoln Memorial] Reflecting Pool and how they kept trying all those cases that were going to fall apart. There’s, you know, these are technically small things that don‘t affect tens of millions of people or global trade. It’s not an issue of war and peace. And yet the smallness of these incidents have a way of magnifying how strange the behavior of the royal court around Trump is,” McCreesh said. “I think it’s very strange that a board of people who are loyal to him got together today and said, no, we are going to scrape your name on the wall after we‘ve been told to take it off. That‘s very unique behavior.”

Collins added, “‘Unique’ is a word for it.”

Play Video

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.

Trump has made numerous personal attacks on Collins, notably telling her to “smile more” and comparing her to a transgender activist. Collins isn’t fazed.

“I just think in those moments, it’s important to put the reminder back on the work, and the question and the non-answers we get,” she told Jon Stewart last month. “It’s not really about me and I don’t want it to be about my reaction. I think if you let it become about that, then it becomes a back-and-forth between the two of us.”

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

William VaillancourtReporter

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.