President Donald Trump interrupted his own Fox News interview to rant about a “stupid” CBS News correspondent who infuriated him by asking a question about the attack on the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
During an April 26 appearance on 60 Minutes, Trump told Norah O’Donnell she was “horrible” for reading part of a manifesto left by 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen, who is accused of attempting to assassinate administration officials during this year’s gala dinner.
In the manifesto, Allen allegedly wrote that he was “no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” prompting Trump to rage at O’Donnell, “I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody… I’m not a pedophile.”
Two weeks later, he appeared to still be seething over the interview, as he paused to attack O’Donnell during an unrelated question from Fox’s Sean Hannity.
Asked whether the U.S. made any progress during talks with China this week on the topic of trade, tariffs, and intellectual property theft, Trump replied, “It is progress but I also tell people that, you know, I was in an interview with a very bad, you know, stupid reporter, she works for CBS, you saw the 60 Minutes. Stupid person.”
“Just an average person,” he continued, before finally getting to his point. “You could take anybody off the street and it would be as good as she is. Very average. And she asked me a question. She talked about China.”
More than six months ago, O’Donnell had asked Trump during a different 60 Minutes interview how big a threat China posed, in light of U.S. intelligence assessments that found China had infiltrated parts of the American power grid and water systems, stolen American intellectual property and personal data, and bought American farmland.
Both during the 60 Minutes and Sean Hannity interviews, Trump downplayed the risks, saying China steals from and spies on the U.S. and vice versa.
His tirade against O’Donnell came a week after he complained that she was “terrible” during a phone interview with Salem News Channel’s Hugh Hewitt.
“She’s a regular person that gets paid a lot of money,” he complained. “I could get any woman off the street practically and they would do just as good of job as her. There’s nothing special.”
The president has a well-documented disdain for female reporters, in particular, who ask him uncomfortable questions.
Just this week, he melted down at MS NOW’s White House Correspondent Akayla Gardner when she accurately pointed out that his $400 million White House ballroom project has ballooned to several times the original cost.
“I doubled the size of it, you dumb person!” he snapped. “You are not a smart person.”
In a separate exchange during the same press gaggle, Trump snarled at another unidentified female reporter that she was a “stupid person” after she asked him to assess his economic policies in light of rising inflation during the Iran war.
Last week, he attacked both O’Donnell and ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott, whom he called “one of the worst reporters” and a “horror show” for asking about his tacky D.C. renovations. He also previously called Scott “nasty” at a 2024 event for Black journalists.
In April, he called Fox News’ Jessica Tarlov “one of the Least Attractive and Talented People on all of Television.”
In March, he called an unidentified female reporter from ABC News “a very obnoxious person” after she asked about a fundraising email sent by his political action committee that used official White House photos of the president attending a dignified transfer ceremony for servicemembers killed in Iran.
In February, he called CNN’s Kaitlan Collins “so bad” and “the worst reporter,” as he complained in response to a question about the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that he had “never seen her smile.”
In November, he also snapped at a female reporter from Bloomberg who tried to ask him about the Epstein files, barking at her to be “quiet, piggy,” during a gaggle aboard Air Force One, and called Katie Rogers of The New York Times “ugly, both inside and out” over a report about him slowing down with age.
And that’s not even counting all the female reporters he has accused over the years—many of them Black—of asking “stupid questions.”
The White House has repeatedly denied the remarks have anything to do with the reporters’ gender, even though nearly all of Trump’s outbursts have been directed at women.
For example, when attacking Rogers, the president didn’t even mention the male co-author on the story he was complaining about.
“The president is very frank and honest with everyone in this room,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a November press briefing following the “piggy” debacle. “It’s one of the many reasons that the American people re-elected this president, because of his frankness.”
She also tried to MAGAsplain to the assembled reporters that, “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.”
