Trump’s bad habit: Insulting women and journalists who criticize him

A quick look through the archives is enough to see the complex relationship that U.S. President Donald Trump has with women. He insults, humiliates, and offends them as soon as they disagree with him. Shameless, openly sexist, and rude, Trump most recently offended a woman this week, when he insulted a Bloomberg journalist who was asking him about his relationship with the deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “Quiet, piggy,” the U.S. president snapped at her on Friday night while traveling on Air Force One to Mar-a-Lago, where he escapes on weekends.

There is a shameful public record of Trump’s contemptuous and sexist attitudes toward women. On Tuesday, he threatened an ABC News journalist with revoking the network’s license after she asked him a question about his relationship with Epstein. “You’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter,” the president reprimanded her. “You ought to go back and learn how to be a reporter. No more questions from you,” added an irate Trump at the White House, where he was meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Trump’s insults sparked a swift reaction on social media, which was flooded with memes caricaturing the Republican. The president also received criticism from members of the Democratic Party for belittling women and journalists, who are simply doing their job by asking questions.

Trump’s disparaging remarks about women are frequent, especially when they are politicians or journalists. The New York tycoon often berates members of the media who challenge him with their questions. A couple of months ago, he reprimanded an Australian journalist who was asking him about his business dealings. “Shut up,” he shouted rudely. “You’re hurting Australia very much right now. They want to get along with me,” he threatened. “Your leader is coming over to see me very soon. I’m going to tell him about you.”

The occupant of the Oval Office routinely threatens media outlets critical of his policies or administration. He has sued ABC and CNN, won a lawsuit against CBS after suing them for editing an interview, and is threatening to take the BBC to court over a similar case concerning a documentary on the attacks on the Capitol in January 2021. He has also sued American newspapers and news websites.

“Trump focuses on insulting women more than men. And these disparaging remarks always have to do with their appearance. They are insults that we consider to be gender-based,” Elisa Lees Muñoz, executive director of the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF), told EL PAÍS by phone. “He knows what happens when a man in power insults a female journalist. It’s the beginning of a chain of events where words have consequences. And it invites many other men to escalate that same insult against women,” she added.

“They know exactly what they’re doing when they start this kind of behavior. It’s not just to stop the woman in that specific moment; it’s to make it very clear to all the other women what will happen to them if they act bothersome,” adds Lees, who denounces the democratic backsliding that society is experiencing. “Nobody wants to speak out and say what’s true and what’s right or wrong because they’re afraid of putting themselves in the spotlight.”

“Although insults may seem harmless, when they come from the head of our government, they often unleash a torrent of abuse against the journalist,” the expert states.

Although Trump doesn’t reserve insults solely for women, he uses them more prolifically. A few weeks ago, he lashed out at Democratic Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. “AOC (the acronym for the socialist leader) has very low IQ,” he said. He called Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to become Speaker of the House, “an evil woman” when, two weeks ago, he was asked about the Democrat’s decision to retire after 40 years in the political arena.

Trump’s brashness and verbal incontinence with women contrast sharply with the coldness he maintains with his wife, Melania Trump, or the distant relationship he is said to have with his mother, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, a Scottish immigrant. She became ill when the current U.S. president was a child, preventing her from overseeing his upbringing for several years. The daughter of a Scottish fisherman who traveled to the United States at 18 to work as a house cleaner, his mother is one of the few women Trump acknowledges admiring.

But Trump’s countless speeches are more filled with contempt for women than praise. Just a year ago, during the presidential election in which he faced Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, he said, “Kamala is mentally disabled.”

The Republican also didn’t hold back when attacking The View host Sunny Hostin and actress Whoopi Goldberg, whom he insulted openly. “What a dumb woman,” he said of Hostin.

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