President Donald Trump on Thursday attacked a journalist for asking a primary query throughout a Thanksgiving media availability after he spoke to U.S. service members, a part of a latest pattern of insults he’s hurled on the ladies who cowl him.
“Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person?” he requested the reporter throughout a tense alternate in regards to the suspect in Wednesday’s assault on two Nationwide Guard members in Washington, D.C.
Trump through the occasion introduced that one of many victims, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom, had died and railed in opposition to the immigration insurance policies of President Joe Biden because the suspect, who had labored with the CIA in Afghanistan, was allowed into america as a part of a resettlement program in 2021.
Nonetheless, he was granted asylum this yr by the Trump administration.
“He was vetted and the vetting came up clean,” the reporter identified.
“He went cuckoo,” Trump replied. “I mean, he went nuts, and that happens too. It happens too often with these people.”
However Trump insisted that Afghan migrants have been allowed in with no screening, and held up a photograph of a crowded aircraft of asylum-seekers:
JIM WATSON through Getty Photographs
“There was no vetting or anything, they came in unvetted,” he stated.
“Actually, your DOJ IG just reported this year that there was thorough vetting by DHS and by the FBI of these Afghans who were brought into the U.S.,” she continued. “So why do you blame the Biden administration?”
Trump didn’t just like the query in any respect.
“Because they let ’em in,” he fired again. “Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? Because they came into on a plane along with thousands of other people that shouldn’t be here, and you’re just asking questions because you’re a stupid person.”
Trump stated “it’s almost impossible” to take away the individuals who got here in through this program.
“You can’t get them out once they come in,” stated Trump, whose administration claimed to have deported 527,000 migrants this yr up to now (though that quantity has been challenged).
Trump has a protracted historical past of attacking the media, however in latest weeks has been particularly vitriolic towards the ladies who cowl him.
He known as Katie Rogers of the New York Instances “ugly” after she co-bylined a report on his lighter schedule as he ages. He chastised ABC’s Mary Bruce for asking what he known as “a horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question” about having Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, within the Oval Workplace.
And when Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey requested in regards to the Jeffrey Epstein information, he fired again: “Quiet, piggy!”
His employees has adopted his lead, telling New Yorker author Jane Mayer to “respectfully, shut the fuck up” when she questioned the deployment of Nationwide Guard troops to Washington after the assault.
Mary Trump, a scientific psychologist who can be the president’s niece, stated these assaults are telling.
“He’s a little rattled,” she stated in her podcast earlier this week.
