Donald Trump compliments "beautiful" female Irish reporter's "nice smile"

Caitríona Perry was in the White House to report on Donald Trump, not get hit on by him

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published June 28, 2017 8:32AM (EDT)

 (Twitter/ Caitriona Perry)
(Twitter/ Caitriona Perry)

President Donald Trump has attracted negative publicity for an incident in which he seemed to flirt with an Irish reporter Caitríona Perry.

During a telephone conversation with Ireland's Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Trump is reported to have called over Perry after commenting that there were members of Ireland's press in the Oval Office.

"We have all of this Irish, beautiful Irish press here," Trump said as he beckoned to Perry, a representative of Raidió Teilifís Éireann, Ireland's national public service broadcaster.

He also commented that Perry "has a nice smile on her face so I bet she treats you well."

Perry later told RTE, "One minute we were outside the window and the next minute I'm meeting the president of the United States."

She added, "Usually we would shoot from outside the window of the White House and that's what we were expecting today, but instead we were invited inside to witness the President's call to the Taoiseach. When we went in he was already on the phone but I managed to catch his eye and he called me over."

Perry later tweeted out video footage of the incident, which she described as a "bizarre moment" between herself and the president.

During the call, Trump invited Varadkar to the White House for a St. Patrick's Day celebration next year. Varadkar is Ireland's first openly gay prime minister, as well as the son of an Indian immigrant.


By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

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