President Trump has a real issue with female reporters who ask tough questions. When he goes off on one there is an ugly edge to his voice. I have been raised to treat women with a certain deference, even reporters. I don’t mean that they should be pampered or judged by a lesser standard, I mean this guy seems like an abusive spouse.
It happens regularly. Just a couple of days ago in Wisconsin where Kristen Welker the fine moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press mentioned that there is no evidence that the election of 2020 was rigged, Trump went off on her as if she was singularly responsible for him losing to Joe Biden. With the menace of an aging gangster, he leaned into her as if he was going to pummel her right there on live television, accusing the long-established forum for newsmakers of being “crooked” and Welker herself, “stupid.”
Stupid? Who calls a woman or anybody stupid to their face on international television for asking a question that he’s been asked 1000’s times before? He dramatically tore off his microphone, got up, ending the interview abruptly despite Welker’s entreaties to give her a break since she went all the way to Wisconsin to get a couple of minutes of his time.
Women who survive the rough and tumble world of political journalism must have thick skins. But in more than half a century of reporting I have never seen anyone as rude and distasteful as President Trump, who routinely insults the looks, ethics and competence of female reporters who cover the White House. He calls them “garbage.” Sometimes, he doesn’t even wait for the question before exploding and insulting the woman with the temerity to look him in the eye and ask something remotely edgy. Why doesn’t the White House press corps stick up for the targets of his sexist diatribes?
On board Air Force One a year ago Trump insulted Bloomberg White House correspondent Catherine Lucey, trying to ask a totally appropriate question about Jeffrey Epstein during the period that story was leading the news. He answered her first question then snapped “Quiet Piggy.” Piggy?! Calling HR!
However raw and inappropriate his exchanges with women reporters generally, none have been as insulting and offensive as President Trump’s attacks on CNN’s former Chief White House Correspondent now anchor of her own weeknight show “The Source with Kaitlin Collins.” The history of their interactions stretches back to Trump’s first term but let us start with this week’s $1.8 billion slush fund.
Trump was in the middle answering another reporter’s question when he turned to Collins and out of nowhere said, “I never see a smile on her face. I see her standing there with hatred in her eyes, like she has hatred because we have borders, because we have a strong military, because we cut our taxes, because we do things that everybody wanted and then we win our election in a massive landslide.”
When Collins suggested that the slush fund could be used to pay off January 6th rioters who went to jail for attacking cops, Trump, his voice dripping with venom looking straight at her says “…you should be ashamed of yourself. You used to be a conservative. She was a conservative from Alabama,” he tells the crowd. “Can you believe it?”
Unflustered Collins, unsmiling responds, “I’m still from Alabama.”
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