On Friday night, as bipartisan calls for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s ouster were growing, Donald Trump floated a new defense for the South Dakota Republican. Noem’s many critics, the president argued online, are “going after” her “because she is a woman.”
This was, by any reasonable standard, ridiculous. The hapless DHS secretary has earned the ire of Democrats and Republicans from the local, state and federal level. There’s nothing to suggest Noem’s prominent detractors are focused on her gender in any way.
But there is a related problem: Trump is a poor messenger for a message about misogyny. Indeed, if any political leader ought to avoid making accusations like these, it’s the president with a long track record of mistreating women.
Four days after levying the baseless accusation, Trump scolded CNN’s Kaitlan Collins during a White House event when she asked about Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are so bad,” the president told the correspondent. “You are the worst reporter. No wonder CNN has no ratings, because of people like you. You know, she’s a young woman. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. I’ve known you for 10 years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smile on your face.”
When Collins tried to return to her line of inquiry, Trump interrupted again to emphasize that she wasn’t smiling, before he concluded by saying he believes CNN “should be ashamed” of her.
As the event wrapped up and the press corps was being ushered out of the room, the president was heard complaining to a GOP senator that “she never smiles!” as he pointed toward the press.
In case this isn’t obvious, men in professional settings who tell women they “should smile more” is at this stage a caricature of offensive and demeaning behavior. It’s on the first page of “how not to treat people with respect” in HR manuals everywhere. If the incumbent Republican president is aware of this, he apparently didn’t care on Tuesday afternoon.
But while the remark was plainly indefensible, it is merely the latest incident in a growing pattern that shows Trump unable to restrain himself from lashing out at women in media.
Nov. 14: En route to Florida for his latest golf weekend, Trump fielded a few questions from reporters on Air Force One. When a Bloomberg journalist took the opportunity to ask about one of the Jeffrey Epstein emails, the president snapped, “Quiet, piggy.”
Nov. 18: When Mary Bruce, ABC News’ chief White House correspondent, asked Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, about the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Trump whined that the reporter’s question might “embarrass” his “guest,” seemingly unaware of the fact that it’s not the job of the press to protect the feelings of foreign authoritarians. Trump went on to describe the question as “insubordinate,” as if journalists were somehow employees of the Saudi royal family or the White House, before telling Bruce she’s “terrible.”
Nov. 26: When The New York Times ran an article about the president’s stamina, Trump published an online tantrum that concluded with the Republican saying the reporter who wrote the article “is ugly, both inside and out.”
Nov. 27: Trump told a reporter she was “a stupid person” for asking a question he didn’t like about his asylum policies.
Dec. 6: The president slammed CNN’s Collins as “stupid and nasty.”
Nearly two months later, he apparently wants Collins to smile more, too.
The recent offensive has been jarring in its frequency and intensity, but it’s not exactly new. Indeed, it’s been a problem for quite a while.
Trump remains exactly who he has always appeared to be. He’s the man in the E. Jean Carroll case. He’s the one on the “Access Hollywood” recording. He’s the Republican who suggested some of the women who have accused him of sexual misconduct weren’t attractive enough to assault. He’s the politician who vowed to “protect” women, “whether the women like it or not.”
He’s also the one who struggles to treat the women who cover the White House with a modicum of respect and professionalism.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
