When the president of america pointed angrily at a reporter and known as her “piggy” final week, I want she had gone full Muppet: “Who? Moi?”
In fact, Bloomberg White Home reporter Catherine Lucey did nothing of the kind. She was a consummate skilled and didn’t reply to President Trump’s gratuitous insult after she requested why he had not already launched the Epstein information if he has nothing to cover. However Trump’s remark to her aboard Air Pressure One was so juvenile, so absurd and so beneath the dignity of his workplace that it appeared like he was parodying himself.
Besides he wasn’t. That is precisely who he’s.
Trump’s been publicly denigrating ladies for years. Particularly journalists.
In 2011, he despatched New York Instances columnist Gail Collins a duplicate of her personal column, wherein she described him as a “financially embattled thousandaire.” He’d circled her image and scrawled “The Face of a Canine!” throughout it.
In 2015, throughout his first debate with Republican presidential hopefuls, moderator Megyn Kelly, then of Fox Information, opened by quoting a few of the misogynistic insults he’d lobbed at ladies over time, together with “fats pigs,” “canines,” “slobs” and “disgusting animals.”
“You as soon as advised a contestant on the ‘The Superstar Apprentice’ it might be a fairly image to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you just like the temperament of a person we should always elect as president?” Kelly requested. Trump sputtered, then issued a veiled menace: “I’ve been very good to you, though I might most likely possibly not be, based mostly on the best way you’ve handled me.”
The following day, as it’s possible you’ll recall, Trump insinuated that Kelly had been on her interval, with “blood popping out of her eyes, blood popping out of her wherever.”
In 2016, Trump memorably known as his Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, “such a nasty lady,” which grew to become an instantaneous badge of honor for progressive American ladies.
Just a few days after Piggygate, Trump welcomed Saudi Arabian dictator Mohammed bin Salman to the Oval Workplace and placed on one other sexist show as he lauded the crown prince’s human rights file and touted the administration’s deal promoting the Saudis our most subtle fighter jets, and the Saudi’s vow to take a position a trillion {dollars} within the U.S.
Did Trump actually suppose the press corps could be so besotted by his dealmaking that they’d fail to ask the prince in regards to the grotesque 2018 homicide of Washington Publish columnist Jamal Khashoggi, high of thoughts for any American journalist protecting the go to?
Kudos to Mary Bruce, ABC Information chief White Home correspondent, for elevating it, and for alluding to Saudi involvement within the assault that inflicted our nation’s worst-ever incident of mass homicide. (In August, a federal choose cleared the best way for a lawsuit filed by 9/11 households in opposition to Saudi Arabia to proceed to trial.)
“Your royal highness,” mentioned Bruce, “the U.S. intelligence concluded that you simply orchestrated the brutal homicide of a journalist; 9/11 households are livid that you’re right here within the Oval Workplace. Why ought to People belief you?”
“You’re mentioning any person that was extraordinarily controversial,” Trump mentioned of Khashoggi. “Lots of people didn’t just like the gentleman you’re speaking about. Whether or not you want him, or didn’t like him, issues occur.” (Think about if a Democratic elected official had been equally dismissive in regards to the homicide of right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk.)
However in fact, Trump wasn’t completed. He additionally attacked Bruce personally, saying she’d requested a “horrible, insubordinate and only a horrible query.” Solely a person who surrounds himself with boot-licking sycophants and sucks as much as royalty would take into account a journalist’s pointed query an insult. How dare a peon tackle a prince?
“You don’t should embarrass our visitor by asking a query like that,” Trump mentioned. The prince, nonetheless, didn’t seem like in the least embarrassed. He denied accountability for Khashoggi’s homicide and dismemberment, and known as it “an enormous mistake.”
It’s pathetic, and revealing, how Trump loses it when ladies problem him.
He dismissed the author E. Jean Carroll, who has prevailed in sexual abuse and defamation lawsuits in opposition to him, as a “nut job,” a “whack job,” a “liar,” a “fraud” and — as if that is the last word insult — “not my sort.”
Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, till not too long ago one of many president’s most fervent supporters, has been outspoken about Republican accountability for skyrocketing Obamacare premiums, and was one in all three Republican congresswomen to assist releasing the Epstein information earlier than the remainder of the Home, then the Senate got here round final week.She is now a “traitor” in Trump’s view, an insult he tosses round with little regard for the dying threats it evokes.
He did it once more on Thursday, after six Democratic members of Congress, all of whom are both former army or intelligence officers, launched a video reminding American troopers that they’re obligation sure to not comply with unlawful orders.
Trump mentioned the Congress members had been responsible of “seditious habits on the highest degree” “punishable by dying,” and reposted a Reality Social remark calling for them to be hanged.
I can perceive Trump’s growing suits of pique. He’s had a horrible few weeks: His get together was trounced within the off-year elections, the Senate refused his demand to finish the filibuster to convey a fast finish to the federal government shutdown. After calling the demand for the Epstein information a Democratic “hoax,” he caved and signed the invoice ordering the Justice Division to launch them. The economic system continues to falter, regardless of his lies on the contrary.
Anticipating a thin-skinned man like Trump to be respectful to those that ply him with questions on his failures — particularly when they’re ladies — is a recipe for disappointment.
I didn’t suppose it was attainable, however this time, Trump has hit a brand new low.
Bluesky: @rabcarian
Threads: @rabcarian
