TIME WARP

Trump Expresses Wish That Women Reporters at White House Were More Like ’50s Housewives

Complaining about CBS News journalist Paula Reid, the president suggested he’d prefer to talk to ’50s’ TV mom Donna Reed.

President Donald Trump has singled out two “angry” women reporters and suggested that he wished they acted more like demure housewives from the 1950s. In a wild interview with the New York Post, Trump complained that he found two female CBS News journalists—Weijia Jiang and Paula Reid—particularly irritating during his recent streak of coronavirus press briefings. “It wasn’t Donna Reed, I can tell you that,” Trump said, referring to the screen star best known for playing Mary Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life and starring as a TV housewife in the eponymous sitcom of the ’50s and ’60s. Trump went on: “Paula Reid, she’s sitting there and I say, ‘How angry. I mean, What’s the purpose?’ They’re not even tough questions, but you see the attitude of these people, it’s like incredible.” In response, Reid tweeted Tuesday morning: “President Trump tells @nypost I am nothing like 50’s American archetypal mom Donna Reed. Fact-check: True.” For her part, Jiang responded “The President told me to be ‘nice and easy’ three out of the last four times I asked him a question.”