Trump Calling Reporter ‘Piggy’ Was ‘Frankness,’ White House Says
Last week, President Trump snapped at a journalist when she asked him about Jeffrey Epstein. “Quiet!” the president told Catherine Lucey, a reporter for Bloomberg News. “Quiet, piggy.”
Mr. Trump’s use of a schoolyard epithet raised eyebrows. “Disgusting and completely unacceptable,” scolded CNN’s Jake Tapper. A press watchdog group said that “targeting women reporters with humiliating insults should not be tolerated.”
On Thursday, Mr. Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, put a different spin on the remark.
“I think everyone in this room should appreciate the frankness and the openness that you get from President Trump on a near-daily basis,” Ms. Leavitt told reporters during a briefing in the West Wing.
Related Knowledge Center: The White House vs. the press
Whether it’s the Des Moines Register’s publication of an unfavorable election poll, a routine edit of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, or the Associated Press’s decision in its authoritative stylebook to continue to use “Gulf of Mexico,” Donald Trump and the White House have used executive authority and legal reprisals in an effort to punish and suppress press coverage that runs contrary to the administration’s preferred narratives.
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