White House Defends Donald Trump for Calling Female Reporter ‘Ugly,’ Insisting Americans Like His ‘Transparency’

The White House is standing firmly behind Donald Trump after he disparaged a female reporter’s appearance in response to a story examining his “signs of fatigue” as a 79-year-old president.

On Wednesday, Nov. 26, Trump, 79, took to his social media platform Truth Social to lash out over a New York Times article co-written by White House correspondent Katie Rogers, which explored how his age is affecting his second term in office.

The story suggested Trump has scaled back his domestic travel and appeared to be slowing down, attributing those changes to “the realities of aging in office.”

In a sharply worded post, Trump attacked Rogers personally, writing, “The writer of the story, Katie Rogers, who is assigned to write only bad things about me, is a third rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson addressed his comments in a statement, saying, “President Trump has never been politically correct, never holds back, and in large part, the American people re-elected him for his transparency.”

“This has nothing to do with gender,” Jackson continued. “It has everything to do with the fact that the President’s and the public’s trust in the media is at all time lows.”

Trump’s Wednesday morning post also went after The New York Times as an institution, calling the paper a “cheap ‘RAG,’ ” and declaring it “truly an ‘ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.’ ”

“The Creeps at the Failing New York Times are at it again,” he wrote, before listing a series of issues he says he has worked to address as president.

“To do this requires a lot of Work and Energy, and I have never worked so hard in my life,” Trump said. “Yet despite all of this the Radical Left Lunatics in the soon to fold New York Times did a hit piece on me that I am perhaps losing my Energy, despite facts that show the exact opposite. They know this is wrong, as is almost every thing that they write about me, including election results, ALL PURPOSELY NEGATIVE.”

He also touted having recently undergone a medical evaluation and cognitive screening commonly used to help detect dementia, writing, “There will be a day when I run low on Energy, it happens to everyone, but with a PERFECT PHYSICAL EXAM AND A COMPREHENSIVE COGNITIVE TEST (‘That was aced’) JUST RECENTLY TAKEN, it certainly is not now! GOD BLESS AMERICA & MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

Rogers’ article, co-written with fellow New York Times journalist Dylan Freedman, cited several moments that have raised questions about Trump’s stamina and health since his return to the Oval Office.

Among them was an instance in which Trump appeared to fall asleep during an official meeting — an allegation he denied, insisting he is “not a sleeper.” The story also referenced occasions when he was seen with a noticeable bruise on his hand, prompting speculation about his medical condition.

A spokesperson for The New York Times responded to Trump’s broadside in a statement, saying, “The Times’s reporting is accurate and built on first hand reporting of the facts. Name-calling and personal insults don’t change that, nor will our journalists hesitate to cover this administration in the face of intimidation tactics like this.”

“Expert and thorough reporters like Katie Rogers exemplify how an independent and free press helps the American people better understand their government and its leaders,” the statement added.

This is not the first time the White House has defended Trump after he directed insults at female journalists this month.

Less than two weeks earlier, he snapped, “Quiet. Quiet, Piggy” at Bloomberg correspondent Catherine Lucey aboard Air Force One. His Nov. 14 remark came after she pressed him with questions about the Epstein files.

A White House spokesperson later suggested that Lucey “behaved in an inappropriate and unprofessional way towards her colleagues on the plane,” adding, “If you’re going to give it, you have to be able to take.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also defended Trump’s “piggy” comment during a press briefing on Thursday, Nov. 20.

“Look, the president is very frank & honest with everyone in this room,” she told reporters. “You’ve all seen it yourselves. You’ve all experienced it yourselves. And I think it’s one of the many reasons the American people reelected this president, because of his frankness.”

“He calls out fake news when he sees it,” Leavitt, 28, continued. “He gets frustrated with reporters when you lie about him, when you spread fake news about him and his administration.”

“And so I think the president being frank and open and honest to your faces, rather than hiding behind your backs, is frankly a lot more respectful than what you saw in the last administration, where you had a president who would lie to your face and then didn’t speak to you for weeks,” she added. “I think everyone in this room should appreciate the frankness and the openness that you get from President Trump on a near-daily basis.”