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A transgender influencer fired back at President Donald Trump after his joke comparing the biological male to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins during Friday night’s White House Correspondent’s Association (WHCA) Dinner went viral.
“Maybe being publicly mocked and criticized by this administration is actually like the greatest compliment of all,” said Dylan Mulvaney in a TikTok post on Sunday. “Because it puts me in the company of some of the most brilliant, empathetic people in our world today.”
Mulvaney, once a social media star and one of the most recognizable transgender people in the United States, has maintained a low profile over the past few years since an advertising debacle featuring the influencer tanked the stock of a major beer company.
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But Mulvaney was thrust back into the spotlight after Trump’s WHCA Dinner joke comparing the transgender influencer to Collins, a longtime media foe of the 45th and 47th president.
“I thought Kaitlan Collins had really made it big with a major new sponsorship, but then I informed her that it wasn’t her on the Bud Light can, it was Dylan Mulvaney,” he said, referencing the beer brand’s failed marketing campaign.
In 2023, Bud Light partnered with Mulvaney for a March Madness promotion. On Instagram, Mulvaney posted a video featuring a Bud Light can with their face on it, sparking intense backlash, a prolonged boycott and a more than $27 billion loss in market cap for Anheuser-Busch.
“To the president, thank you for reminding me that I am more powerful than I even knew,” Mulvaney said in the Sunday video. “And to quote my favorite recording artist, Shea Diamond, ‘I am America.’”
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Trump took his time roasting Collins in his hour-and-four-minute remarks at the WHCA Dinner on Friday.
Besides comparing her to a biological male who transitioned to female in a TikTok series where they would chronicle every day of ‘becoming a girl,’ Trump also took a swipe at her apparently steely demeanor.
“I want to personally congratulate CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on receiving her award. It was all about me. It’s a fake. She shouldn’t get the award. It was a fake, but I didn’t mind. I said, ‘Kaitlan, congratulations.’ But it was fake. There’s no question about it,” Trump said.
Collins received the WHCA Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure for broadcast due to her reporting on the contentious Oval Office meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump in February 2025.
“But she’s a young, attractive woman,” Trump went on, adding, “She never smiles. I said, ‘Kaitlan, do you ever smile? Smile. You have a nice position. You’re at CNN — fake news. You should be a happy person. So smile, Kaitlan. Just smile.'”
Collins appeared to respond to Trump’s jokes at her expense in an Instagram post over the weekend featuring a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt.
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” the quote said.
CNN’s public relations team also posted a statement on X after Trump’s speech backing one of their biggest stars.
“We stand by our journalists and the integrity and fair mindedness with which the CNN team reports the news,” the statement, attributed to Chairman and CEO Mark Thompson, said.
“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.”
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