President Donald Trump lashed out at a journalist on Tuesday during a press conference on Capitol Hill.
The journalist had asked Trump about Rep. Andy Harris, the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, who had earlier said that the president had not adequately convinced members of the party’s hard-right faction to support his “big, beautiful” bill.
Trump started to respond before changing gears to ask where the reporter worked.
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“Who do you work for?” Trump asked the reporter.
“NOTUS,” the person responded.
“I don’t even know what the hell that is. Get yourself a real job,” Trump snapped back.
A clip of the moment on X has been viewed more than 2.7 million times.
NOTUS—an acronym for “news of the United States”—is a new newsroom covering the federal government. It’s owned by the Allbritton Journalism Institute and was founded by Robert Allbritton, the former publisher of Politico.
Allbritton told The Washington Post in 2024 that numbers weren’t a huge priority for the site, which saw an average of 40,000 unique monthly visitors from late February and late April last year, according to the report.
“I don’t really think this is competing with anyone,” editor-in-chief Tim Grieve said at the time. “We’re really not trying to do breaking news. We’re really not trying to do the news of the day, but to do distinctive journalism. As long as we’re doing that, it doesn’t matter what anybody else is doing.”
Staff at the donor-backed website, which bills itself as nonpartisan, used Trump’s scathing insult as a promotional tool, asking people to sign up to their newsletters.
“To read NOTUS go here,” wrote political reporter Reese Gorman—a former reporter at the Daily Beast—who shared a link to the site.
Trump is known for being confrontational with journalists, especially when he doesn’t like what they’re asking.
His second administration has been marked by increased hostility towards the press. Last month, his administration restricted White House press pool access to wire services after a feud with the Associated Press over its refusal to adopt Trump’s new name for the Gulf of Mexico, the “Gulf of America.”
He’s also sued multiple media companies over coverage he disagrees with.
In December, he received a controversial settlement from ABC News over an interview between George Stephanopoulos and GOP Rep. Nancy Mace in which the ABC host claimed Trump had been found liable for “rape.” Trump was found liable of sexual abuse, not rape, though the judge who oversaw the case has said the distinction largely came down to the definitions under New York law.
The president is also suing 60 Minutes over complaints about the CBS News program’s interview with his 2024 Democratic presidential rival, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump claims the interview was edited deceptively. CBS denies Trump’s claims.
