Trump town hall on CNN: Live updates
Former President Donald Trump points at CNN's Kaitlan Collins during the town hall. John Nowak/CNN
One of the many jarring moments during CNN's town hall with former President Donald Trump occurred when the moderator, CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, was asking Trump why he held on to classified documents when he left the White House. The FBI later recovered them from Mar a Lago by executing a search warrant.
When Collins pointed out that the difference between Trump and Joe Biden, who also faces questions about classified documents found at his house but who didn't ignore a subpoena, Trump interrupted her.
"Are you ready? Can I talk?" Trump demanded. "Do you mind?"
"Yeah, I would like for you to answer the question. That's why I asked it," Collins said.
"It's very simple that you're a nasty person, I'll tell you," Trump said, attempting to insult her as his supporters in the crowd cheered.
"Can you answer why you held on to the documents?" Collins asked again, at which point Trump launched into a rambling answer that boils down to he was negotiating with the National Archives during the year-plus when the government was seeking them.
It's the insult to Collins' face, calling her "nasty," that was jarring. And the cheering crowd made it more so.
The word has long been a favorite insult of Trump's, often hurled at women who frustrate him.
He called Hillary Clinton a "nasty woman" at the close of the final presidential debate in 2016.
He's used it on Vice President Kamala Harris and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Of Meghan Markle, who had criticized him, in 2019, Trump told a British newspaper, "I didn't know that she was nasty."
After he hurled the insult at Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen later that summer, the Washington Post's Aaron Blake documented 14 times Trump had used the insult to describe a woman. He found even more instances of Trump using the word to describe a man, although some of those appeared to be complements.
Source: CNN
