Donald Trump and the media have never had a smooth relationship.
This tension goes back to Trump’s first term, when he seemed to have a daily battle with CNN’s Jim Acosta.
Now, it seems like most of the reporters who are covering Trump for the main outlets are women. I think that is by design, because they know the president will attack anyone deemed a hostile questioner, and now he has given them even more ammunition to use against him after he snapped at yet another female reporter.
For the most part, the first few months of Trump’s presidency were smooth sailing in terms of his going off on the media in a predictable fashion.
He did his usual “fake news” rants, but there were really few personal insults, such as the ones he customarily leveled at Acosta. That is, until the issue of the Jeffrey Epstein files started to dominate the news cycle.
When Catherine Lucey, a reporter for Bloomberg News, recently asked Trump about the files, he responded, “Quiet, piggy.”
That immediately drew a response from the media, including CNN’s Jake Tapper, who stated that Trump’s comments were “Disgusting and completely unacceptable.”
Let’s fast forward to this month and about a half-dozen or so similar interactions that lead to Trump going off on an ABC News reporter for asking about a controversial Sept. 2 strike on a drug boat.
ABC News White House correspondent Rachel Scott asked Trump, “So are you committed to releasing the full video?” To which Trump snapped back, “Didn’t I just tell you that? You’re the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place.”
He continued, “Let me just tell you, you are an obnoxious, a terrible, actually a terrible reporter. And it’s always the same thing with you. I told you, whatever Pete Hegseth wants to do is OK with me.”
I have commented on this before, stating that I think Trump needs to handle these situations better, especially with women, as the optics of such interactions are horrible. Remember, this goes back to big-picture thinking, as Trump is currently struggling with female voters, and if he struggles, the GOP struggles. He can still call out reporters; he just needs to do away with the insults.
MS NOW’s Deadline host Nicolle Wallace ripped Trump for his language toward female reporters, calling it “sick sh**.”
She stated, “The second thing I wanted to hit pause on with both of you is in never normalize is the verbal violence, the verbal assault on another female journalist. He called ABC’s Rachel Scott today ‘obnoxious and terrible.’ December 6th he called Kaitlin Collins ‘stupid and nasty.’”
Wallace continued, “On November 27th he said ‘are you stupid’ To CBS journalist Nancy Cordes. On November 26th, he called the New York Times Katie Rogers ‘ugly.’ On November 18th, he called ABC’s Mary Bruce ‘terrible and insubordinate’ -- to whom I’m not sure -- November 14th, he told a Bloomberg reporter, ‘quiet, piggy.' This is sick s**t. This is sick.”
Trump’s base loves his approach; everyone else hates it. If Trump were calling out reporters for asking questions he already answered, it would not be nearly as bad, but it is the insults, particularly to women, that are creating the negative buzz right now. I know Trump does not care about political correctness, but if he does not dial this back, it will hurt the party in the 2026 cycle, and it will put female Republicans in a really bad position of trying to defend him. It just does not serve a purpose other than to create a video clip that will go viral on social media.
