Donald Trump has attacked a New York Times reporter on Truth Social, calling her “ugly inside and out” after the paper published a story examining whether, at 80, he may be slowing down in office.
In his post on Wednesday, Trump said he had “never worked so hard in my life” and rejected the article’s suggestion that his energy might be waning. He then singled out one of the piece’s authors for personal criticism.
“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,” he wrote.
Questions about the president’s health have lingered for months, intensifying after Trump acknowledged last month that he underwent an MRI. He described it as part of a routine physical and declined to say which part of his body was scanned.
The Times reported on Tuesday that Trump was showing “signs of fatigue” as he “faces realities of aging in office”.
According to the article, Trump – now the oldest person to ever serve as president – appeared noticeably tired during a 6 November Oval Office event, where “his eyelids drooped until his eyes were almost closed, and he appeared to doze on and off for several seconds”.
Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the New York Times, defended the paper’s coverage and its staff.
“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,” he said in a statement.
“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 continued.
Trump’s comments are the latest in a pattern of highly personal attacks on female journalists. Less than two weeks ago, he referred to a Bloomberg News correspondent as a “piggy” during an exchange aboard Air Force One.
When Catherine Lucey, Bloomberg’s White House correspondent, began asking why Trump was acting as he was regarding the Epstein files “if there’s nothing incriminating in the files”, Trump pointed at her and said: “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.”
The president also lashed out last week at Mary Bruce, an ABC News White House correspondent, after she pressed him on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the Epstein scandal. Trump replied: “It’s not the question that I mind. It’s your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter – it’s the way you ask these questions,” adding: “You’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter.”
Over the years, Trump has frequently reserved some of his sharpest and most personal barbs for women in the press, including calling them “nasty” and invoking menstruation to belittle questions from former Fox News host Megyn Kelly.
