President Donald Trump has once again lashed out at the press, this time calling two female reporters “stupid” and “dumb” in a matter of minutes on Tuesday. Political science experts break down the incident and what it reveals about his leadership style.
Exchange with Akayla Gardner
Trump was taking questions from journalists on the White House South Lawn before departing for China. When MS NOW reporter Akayla Gardner asked about rising costs of his White House ballroom project, the president responded by calling her a “dumb person.” Gardner had asked, “You wanted Jerome Powell fired for cost overruns; how is that different than your ballroom and the reflecting pool?” Trump claimed the ballroom doubled in size because “we obviously need that” and that the project is “on budget, under budget and ahead of schedule.” When Gardner pressed further, Trump said: “I doubled the size of it, you dumb person ... You are not a smart person.”
Earlier Insult to Another Reporter
Just minutes before, Trump called another female reporter “stupid” when she asked about surging U.S. inflation. When she questioned whether his policies are working, given his promise to lower inflation, Trump said his policies are working “incredibly.” He added: “If you go back to just before the war, for the last three months, inflation was at 1.7%. Now, we had a choice. Let these lunatics have a nuclear weapon — if you want to do that, then you’re a stupid person.” He then jabbed at the reporter herself, saying, “And you happen to be. I mean, I know you very well.”
White House Defense
The White House defended Trump’s behavior in a statement to HuffPost on Tuesday: “President Trump has never been politically correct, never holds back, and in large part, the American people re-elected him for his transparency,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson. “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.”
Pattern of Attacks on Female Journalists
Trump has a history of attacking and attempting to silence journalists, with a documented pattern of spewing venom and below-the-belt insults at female reporters in particular. He has frequently insulted their intelligence and used degrading words like “ugly” and “piggy” to attack their appearance. Just last week, Trump snapped at ABC News’ Rachel Scott when she asked about renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool amid soaring gas prices, calling her question “stupid” and labeling her “one of the worst reporters” and a “horror show.”
Expert Analysis
Trump is “obviously sexist,” said Todd Belt, professor and political management program director at the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University. “He doesn’t do this as often to men reporters as he does to women reporters. This is typical bullying behavior that he thinks he can get away with, and for most of his life, he has.” Belt believes that reporters’ questions about Trump’s projects, like his ballroom, are particularly likely to rile him up. “The ballroom is incredibly important to Trump, not just because he wants it for special events but also because it shows off his prowess as a developer. If a reporter criticizes the thing he thinks is unequivocally positive, that is very hurtful to him. Inflation is also harmful to him because he was elected to tame it and he hasn’t done so.”
Jacob Neiheisel, associate professor of political science at the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, noted that Trump’s episodes of snapping at reporters are so common that “they are starting to recede into background noise.” He added, “That seems to be the brand that he has developed. Some of his supporters like it, and it seems to be a style that is coming from other corners now as well. On a broader level, maybe we’ve just come to a place with our politics that internet trolling behavior is widespread.”
Belt believes that Trump’s behavior shows he is “abusive.” “He is using the response style called DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) that has been associated by psychologists with the behavior of abusers.” Belt emphasized that such behavior from a sitting U.S. president should concern the public: “Doing the work of politics requires calm negotiation and compromise. Abusive behavior makes the types of ‘deals’ Trump wants with domestic and foreign leaders more difficult to attain.”
