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

The White House is standing firmly behind President Donald Trump after he attacked the appearance of a female reporter who co-wrote a story about his “signs of fatigue” as a 79-year-old leader.

On Wednesday, Nov. 26, Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to rail against a New York Times article by White House correspondent Katie Rogers examining how his age is influencing his second term in office.

The story suggested that Trump has begun to slow down and is traveling less within the country, attributing the shift to the “realities of aging in office.”

In a sharply worded response, Trump called Rogers out by name, 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 defended the president’s remarks 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 added. “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 attacked The New York Times more broadly, branding the newspaper a “cheap ‘RAG’ ” and calling it “truly an ‘ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.’ ”

“The Creeps at the Failing New York Times are at it again,” he wrote in the lengthy message, before listing a series of issues he claims to have addressed during his presidency.

“To do this requires a lot of Work and Energy, and I have never worked so hard in my life,” he continued. “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.”

Trump went on to boast that he had recently completed a cognitive assessment commonly used to screen for 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, written with fellow New York Times journalist Dylan Freedman, pointed to moments in which the president has appeared to show his age since returning to the Oval Office.

One example cited a meeting during which Trump seemed to fall asleep. He denied that characterization, insisting he was “not a sleeper.” The story also mentioned occasions when he has been photographed with a noticeable bruise on his hand, prompting speculation about his health.

A spokesperson for The New York Times pushed back on Trump’s rant 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 rallied behind Trump after he made disparaging remarks toward 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 outburst came after she asked him about the Epstein files.

At the time, a White House spokesperson argued 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 later defended Trump’s “piggy” remark 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.”