President Donald Trump lashed out at two female reporters less than 10 minutes apart after they asked him simple questions.
The 80-year-old president’s latest outbursts came as he spoke to reporters outside the White House on Monday, before heading to Nebraska for a rally.
Trump first locked horns with CBS News’ Chief White House Correspondent Nancy Cordes after she asked why he was encouraging his supporters to vote by mail in a video he posted on Truth Social despite his long-running efforts to undermine the method.
“I’d rather have them vote in person, but, uhh, they can vote by mail if they want, because we seem to have no choice,” he said, before repeating his false claim that there is “a lot of cheating in vote-by-mail.”
“Where is the evidence?” Cordes asked.
“I’ll tell you what, start off by taking a look at California,” Trump replied. Cordes countered that there was no evidence of fraud in California’s mail ballots.
“No evidence? With millions and millions of ballots?” the president shot back, before jabbing a finger at Cordes and barking, “You are fake news!”
He then moved down the line of reporters, reaching CNN Senior White House Correspondent Kristen Holmes 10 minutes later, when she pressed him on his slipping approval ratings among a demographic that helped propel him to victory in the last election.
“Your approval with Latino voters has dropped down to 27 percent—” Holmes began, before Trump quickly spoke over her.
“Oh, I’m doing great, no, no,” the president insisted, before once again pointing his finger and saying, “You got my polls—you’re fake news.”
“You’re CNN. You’re fake news,” he repeated, claiming that his poll numbers are “great” and offering up crowd sizes as his apparent evidence:
“All you have to do is look at the crowds we’re drawing,” he said. “And every time I leave, that candidate will be losing, and by the time I leave, they’re winning.”
He then turned his fire back on Holmes, barking, “No, CNN poll numbers are fake, and your whole outfit is fake, and so are you.”
However, the poll Holmes cited was not a CNN poll at all, but a new NBC/Telemundo poll that found Latino voters were swinging back toward Democrats amid growing dissatisfaction with the president.
The survey found Latino voters backing Democrats over Republicans by a 24-point margin, with 59 percent saying they’d rather see Democrats take control of Congress in the midterms, compared with 35 percent who said the same of Republicans.
When reached for comment, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told the Daily Beast, “President Trump is the most accessible President in American history. But when liberal reporters, male or female, ask biased questions, he calls them out and delivers his message without apology.”
Trump, who has made a habit of lashing out at female reporters, banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House last month, only for a district judge he appointed to order him to temporarily restore their credentials.
Still, the president has tried to exact revenge in other ways, such as banning the outlets’ travel as part of the press pool on Air Force One or barring them from covering specific events the pool is brought into the Oval Office for.
