Trump singles out Irish journalist, says she has ‘a nice smile’

An exchange in the Oval Office on Tuesday played out like a boardroom elimination on “The Celebrity Apprentice,” as President Donald Trump dropped everything to comment on an Irish reporter’s “nice smile.”

RTÉ Washington correspondent Caitríona Perry was singled out while she and several members of the press visited the White House to cover Trump’s diplomatic phone call with Ireland’s new prime minister, Leo Varadkar.

During Trump’s light discussion with Varadkar, he interrupted the call to summon Perry to his desk.

“Well, we have a lot of your Irish press watching us right now,” Trump said in a video clip Perry posted on Twitter. “We have all of this beautiful Irish press here. Come here, come here, where are you from?”

“RTÉ News, Caitríona Perry,” she said when she approached the desk.

“Caitríona Perry. She has a nice smile on her face, so I bet she treats you well,” Trump said.

The reporter called the exchange a “bizarre moment” and is seen laughing awkwardly as she walks away.

The virtual replies came fast and furious after that, with Twitter users debating whether Perry was being objectified or complimented.

Perry didn’t expect to be allowed inside the Oval Office that day, let alone meet the president in person.

“One minute we were outside the window, and the next minute I’m meeting the president of the United States,” she told RTÉ Entertainment after her encounter. “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 (prime minister). When we went in, he was already on the phone, but I caught his eye, and he called me over.”