CNN Complains After Trump Lampoons Media, Critics During White House Correspondents’ Dinner

President Donald Trump tore into corporate media figures and other critics with a barrage of jokes at Friday night’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, prompting CNN to issue a statement defending their “integrity and fair mindedness.”

Trump’s speech featured a mix of jabs at journalists, political figures, and cultural controversies, continuing his long-running practice of utilizing humor while attacking critics. While several corporate media outlets and critics dismissed the performance as awkward or ineffective, supporters applauded the president’s willingness to mock members of the press during the annual event, which was rescheduled after an attempted assassination of Trump abruptly ended its programming in April.

Trump notably took aim at CNN’s Kaitlin Collins, joking he initially thought she had landed a Bud Light sponsorship before realizing “it wasn’t her on the can, it was Dylan Mulvaney,” referencing the transgender-identifying influencer. Mulvaney entered into a partnership with the beer brand in 2023 which prompted a significant boycott effort and the placing on leave, at a minimum, of the executive who greenlit it.

“We stand by our journalists and the integrity and fair mindedness with which the CNN team reports the news,” CNN Worldwide Chairman and CEO Mark Thomposon responded in an early Saturday statement. “Honest, accurate journalism may sometimes irritate politicians, but our right to report and present that reporting to the public without government interference is fully protected by the U.S. Constitution. CNN will continue to exercise this right.”