Trump targets women reporters with disparaging rhetoric
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President Trump speaks with reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Thanksgiving Day. Photo: Pete Marovich/Getty Images
President Trump has escalated his attacks on women reporters in recent weeks, calling them everything from "stupid," "ugly" and "piggy."
Why it matters: Press freedom groups have condemned his verbal escalations, calling his rhetoric an "unmistakable pattern of hostility."
Driving the news: The president on Thursday asked longtime CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes, "Are you stupid?" after she asked him about the suspect involved in the shooting of two National Guard members earlier this week.
- At a different press conference in Washington on Nov. 18, the president berated ABC News chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce.
- She had asked Saudi Arabia's crown prince about the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which a United Nations report and U.S. intelligence determined was carried out at his direction.
- "You don't have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that," Trump said, while calling her a "terrible reporter." He called her question "horrible," "insubordinate" and "terrible."
- Days earlier, the president told a Bloomberg reporter, "quiet, piggy," as she asked him about the Jeffrey Epstein files during a press gaggle.
Between the lines: Trump has a history of lashing out at women reporters, but the attacks have escalated during his second term.
- During a CNN town hall in 2023, the president called CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins a "nasty person."
- In March 2020, he told PBS journalist Yamiche Alcindor during a COVID-19 press briefing, "Be nice. Don't be threatening." He said her "threatening" line of questioning is "why you used to work for the Times and now you work for someone else."
- He also spoke down to CBS White House correspondent Weijia Jiang at a later pandemic briefing, telling her to "keep your voice down" while she was questioning the president about his COVID-19 response.
The other side: White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement, "President Trump has never been politically correct, never holds back, and in large part, the American people re-elected him for his transparency."
- "This has nothing to do with gender — it has everything to do with the fact that the President's and the public's trust in the media is at all time lows."
Zoom out: Press freedom groups have long alleged that the president's disparaging rhetoric against journalists contributes to a broader decline in press freedoms in the U.S. by creating an environment of hostility and intimidation.
- Following the comments made to Bruce earlier this month, the Society of Professional Journalists said, "These incidents are not isolated; they are part of an unmistakable pattern of hostility — often directed at women — that undermines the essential role of a free and independent press."
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that it was at a press conference on Nov. 18 (not Nov. 17) that the president berated Mary Bruce.
