Trump Calls ABC’s Rachel Scott ‘the Most Obnoxious Reporter’ in the White House for Asking About Pentagon Scandal

President Donald Trump’s pattern of verbally attacking female journalists in the White House press corps continued on Monday, Dec. 8.

At a Cabinet Room roundtable kicking off the week, Trump discussed a long-promised farm aid package. When the prepared remarks ended, he opened the floor to questions — including one from ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott.

Scott asked about the recent, highly scrutinized U.S. military strike on a Venezuelan boat alleged to be carrying illegal drugs, pressing the president on whether his administration would release the full video of the operation.

For days, Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have faced backlash over claims that a follow-up strike, targeting two survivors floating in the ocean, could constitute a war crime if it was carried out solely to kill unarmed men.

“Are you committed to releasing the full video?” Scott, 32, asked.

Trump, 79, bristled at the question. “Didn’t I just tell you that?” he shot back.

“You are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place,” he continued. “Let me just tell you, you are an obnoxious — a terrible reporter. And it’s always the same thing with you. I told you.”

Trump’s latest in-person broadside against a female journalist came on the heels of a weekend Truth Social tirade aimed at one of his frequent media targets, CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins.

Misspelling her name as “Caitlin Collin’s of Fake News CNN,” Trump wrote that the 33-year-old, who once worked for the conservative outlet the Daily Caller during his first term, is “always Stupid and Nasty.”

“FAKE NEWS CNN, and the guy who runs the whole corrupt operation that owns it, is one of the worst in the business,” he added. “Their ratings are so low that they’re not even counted or relevant anymore. MAGA!!!”

Over the past month, several tense exchanges between the president and the women who cover him have drawn national attention.

On Friday, Nov. 14, while Trump was answering questions from reporters aboard Air Force One, Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey began asking whether there was anything “incriminating” in the Epstein emails.

Trump responded by pointing his finger in her face and snapping, “Quiet. Quiet, Piggy.”

Days later, during an Oval Office press appearance with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Nov. 18, Trump again lashed out — this time at ABC News’ Mary Bruce, who attempted to question him about Epstein as well.

“You know, it’s not the question that I mind. It’s your attitude,” he told Bruce. “I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions…”

“You’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter,” he said at other points. “I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and is so wrong. And we have a great commissioner, a chairman, who should look at that.”

Then, on Wednesday, Nov. 26, Trump turned his ire toward The New York Times and its White House correspondent Katie Rogers on his Truth Social page, apparently responding to a story she had contributed to that suggested he was confronting the “realities of aging in office.”

“The Creeps at the Failing New York Times are at it again,” Trump wrote. “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 went on to brand Rogers’ article a “hit piece” and labeled the Times an “ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.”

The New York Times responded later that day, saying in a statement, “The Times’s reporting is accurate and built on firsthand 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.”

The Trump White House has likewise stood by the president’s rhetoric toward the press.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the “piggy” remark when questioned about it, framing it as proof of Trump’s blunt, unfiltered style.

“He calls out fake news when he sees it. He gets frustrated with reporters when you lie about him, when you spread fake news about him and his administration,” Leavitt, 28, said days after the episode. “But he also is the most transparent president in history, and he gives all of you in this room, as you all know, unprecedented access.”

“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,” she continued. “I think everyone in this room should appreciate the frankness and the openness that you get from President Trump on a near-daily basis.”

Similarly, in response to Trump’s comments about Rogers, the White House said in a statement: “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,” a White House spokesperson added, arguing instead that “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.”