First ‘piggy,’ now ‘ugly’: Trump continues attacks on female reporters
By Brian Stelter, CNN
(CNN) — The New York Times produced a detailed, data-driven report on President Trump showing signs of aging. The president, 79, responded by calling the female reporter who co-wrote the story “ugly.”
Trump’s post to Truth Social on Wednesday came less than two weeks after he said “quiet, piggy” to another female reporter, which drew attention to his gendered insults and general brusqueness.
The Times’ story analyzed Trump’s public schedules this year and those during his first term in office. Americans see Trump “less than they used to,” The Times found. He “has fewer public events on his schedule and is traveling domestically much less than he did by this point during his first year in office, in 2017, although he is taking more foreign trips.”
Trump also “keeps a shorter public schedule than he used to,” and “when he is in public, occasionally, his battery shows signs of wear.” However, the story pointed out, Trump “remains almost omnipresent in American life” and takes questions from the press “far more often” than Joe Biden did.
Trump responded on Wednesday morning by saying, “The Creeps at the Failing New York Times are at it again.”
He did not mention the male reporter who co-wrote the story, Dylan Freedman, who is on the newspaper’s AI initiatives team, but he personally attacked the female reporter, Katie Rogers, who is a White House correspondent.
“The writer of the story, Katie Rogers, who is assigned to write only bad things about me, is a third rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out,” Trump wrote.
The president wrapped the insult into a long promotional post about how hard he has worked this year. “I have my highest Poll Numbers, ever,” he falsely claimed — his approval is actually down markedly from the second-term peak.
“There will be a day when I run low on Energy, it happens to everyone,” Trump said, “but with a PERFECT PHYSICAL EXAM AND A COMPREHENSIVE COGNITIVE TEST (‘That was aced’) JUST RECENTLY TAKEN, it certainly is not now!”
Part of The Times’ story focused on Trump’s health, including the fact that he underwent an MRI scan in early October, but has yet to publicly disclose the reason why.
The Times said it submitted detailed questions about Trump’s health but did not receive answers.
Instead, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a statement deriding Biden and claiming Trump and his team “have been open and transparent.”
Trump’s response also bashed The Times at length, calling it “the soon to fold New York Times,” disregarding the publication’s profitability and its growing digital subscription businesses.
The president is also currently suing The Times for defamation, though legal experts have asserted that his case is weak and likely to fail.
A spokesperson for The Times responded to the insults on Wednesday by defending Rogers and the institution as a whole.
“The Times’ reporting is accurate and built on first hand reporting of the facts,” the outlet said. “Name-calling and personal insults don’t change that, nor will our journalists hesitate to cover this administration in the face of intimidation tactics like this. Expert and thorough reporters like Katie Rogers exemplify how an independent and free press helps the American people better understand their government and its leaders.”
The-CNN-Wire
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