General Discussion

The White House is not retreating from the intense backlash to President Donald Trump’s disparaging insult of a female reporter.

Trump, 79, drew outrage when he snapped at Bloomberg White House correspondent Catherine Lucey for asking him a question about the notorious Jeffrey Epstein files on Friday.

“If there’s nothing incriminating in the files, sir, why not—” Lucey began to say as the president took questions aboard Air Force One.

Before she could finish, however, Trump pointed his finger at her and barked, “Quiet! Quiet, piggy.”

The remark was roundly blasted as “disgusting” in a torrent of criticism, including from CNN anchor Jake Tapper and former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson, but the White House seems unfazed.

“This reporter behaved in an inappropriate and unprofessional way toward her colleagues on the plane. If you’re going to give it, you have to be able to take,” a White House official told the Daily Beast.......

The testy exchanges are par for the course for Trump, who has a long history of hurling demeaning insults at women.

In 2017, The New York Times columnist Gail Collins recalled that Trump had sent her copies of her columns that he disliked, calling her a “dog and a liar” with “the face of a pig.”

In 2016, Latina beauty queen Alicia Machado, who won the Miss Universe title at age 19 when Trump co-owned the organization, recounted how he would call her “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping.”