President Donald Trump has offered an explanation for why his voice sounded unusually hoarse while speaking with reporters on Nov. 17.
During a White House press conference on Monday afternoon, a reporter asked Trump if he was “feeling alright” because his “voice sounds a little rough.” Trump replied that his strained voice was the result of yelling at officials over a trade issue.
“I was shouting at people because they were stupid about something having to do with trade, and I straightened it all out,” Trump said. “But I blew my stack at these people.”
The comment came after several tense exchanges between Trump and members of the press in recent days. On Nov. 14, while speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, he was asked by a Bloomberg journalist if there was anything “incriminating” in the emails of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a former Trump associate.
In response, Trump pointed his finger in the reporter’s face and snapped, “Quiet. Quiet, Piggy.”
The question followed the Nov. 12 release of three emails, made public by House Democrats, that discussed Epstein’s relationship with Trump. In those messages, Epstein claimed that Trump allegedly “knew about the girls” and that he had spent “hours” at Epstein’s home with a victim.
At the same time, Trump has been navigating a very public split with longtime ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, after months of rising tensions between the two Republicans. On Nov. 15, Trump announced on Truth Social that he would no longer endorse Greene, calling her a “ranting lunatic.”
On Nov. 17, even as Greene said she was receiving death threats, Trump intensified his criticism, labeling her a “traitor.”
“Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene. I don’t think her life is in danger,” Trump told a reporter. “I don’t think. Frankly, I don’t think anybody cares about her.”
Greene, 51, wrote in a post on X on Saturday, Nov. 15, that she was “being contacted by private security firms with warnings for my safety as a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world,” referring to Trump.
