President Donald Trump melted down when pressed on his failure to keep inflation down—angrily calling a female reporter a “stupid person.”
Trump, 79, was asked whether he felt it was his policy failures that had led to inflation rising by 3.8 percent in the last year—enough to outpace wage growth.
“Mr. President, you promised to bring inflation down,” a reporter asked Trump as he walked to Marine One. “It’s now at its highest level in three years. Are your policies not working? What’s happening?”
Trump was visibly angered by the question.
“Been working incredibly,” he claimed. “If you go back to just before the war, for the last three months, inflation was at 1.7 percent.”
He continued, “Now, we had a choice. Let these lunatics have a nuclear weapon. If you want to do that, then you’re a stupid person—and you happen to be [one]. I mean, I know you very well. Anybody that wants them to have a nuclear weapon is a stupid person.”
The Consumer Price Index revealed that Trump’s war with Iran has spiked energy costs and, thus, inflation since he first launched strikes on Feb. 28. Trump maintains that higher costs for Americans are a sacrifice Americans must make so he can wage war against Iran.
“It’s a very simple message,” Trump said. “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and they won’t have a nuclear weapon. And that’s 100 percent. Their Navy is gone. Their Air Force is gone, their anti-aircraft is gone, their radar is gone, their leaders are gone. They’re all gone. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”
That exchange was not the only instance on Tuesday where Trump resorted to personal insults while addressing reporters. He also became irate when a female reporter called out that the cost of his White House ballroom had doubled from initial projections.
“I doubled the size of it, you dumb person,” he snapped. “Doubled the size. You are not a smart person.”
Those remarks came as Trump exited the White House ahead of his high-stakes trip to Beijing, China.
Traveling alongside the president will be his billionaire allies, including his friend-turned-foe-turned-friend again, Elon Musk, as well as Apple CEO Tim Cook and executives from Boeing, Goldman Sachs, and Mastercard.
