On Tuesday, Donald Trump made a call to the Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar to congratulate him on his election. As he chatted, his eyes scanned the room. Seeing blonde, conventionally attractive Irish reporter Caitriona Perry, he decided to exercise his executive privilege and called for her to approach the desk.
Perry posted a clip of the interaction, calling it a “bizarre moment” during the phone call. Still on the phone, Trump says to Varadkar, “We have a lot of your Irish press watching us right now. We have all of this Irish, beautiful Irish press.”
“Where are you from?” he asks Perry, who is off camera, then demands, “Come here, come here.”
Perry walks up then stands next to him awkwardly.
“She has a nice smile on her face so I bet she treats you well,” says Trump. He seems to listen to Varadkar briefly, then adds, “He thanks you for the newspapers, Caitriona.”
And she is dismissed.
“One minute we were outside the window and the next minute I’m meeting the President of the United States,” Caitriona told RTÉ Entertainment. “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 caught his eye and he called me over.”
This interaction is what I imagine Trump wants every time he is confronted by a room full of reporters.