Questioned about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein last Friday, Donald Trump lost patience and insulted a journalist. “Silence the slut,” he replied. Then, on Tuesday, the American president attacked another journalist and threatened to withdraw ABC’s license, after a new question displeased him.
On Friday, November 14, Mr. Trump was questioned about emails from American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein mentioning his name, aboard his Air Force One plane.
When Bloomberg News parliamentary correspondent Catherine Lucey questioned him, the president turned to her, pointed at her and said: “ Quiet. Quiet, piggy. ». This could be translated as: “Silence. Silence, slut. »
Donald Trump’s attacks on members of the press, and more particularly women, are becoming more and more frequent. For the Republican, it seems that it has become an annoying habit.
“It’s as if we’ve been made immune to what he says about journalists. We are no longer surprised. Just this sentence, if we put it in the mouth of a local politician, we would only talk about that,” estimates Valérie Beaudoin, researcher at the Raoul-Dandurand Chair.
“It’s unacceptable, but there is some desensitization because of his repeated attacks on the media,” she told The PressTuesday.
In the United States, the media community reacted badly. CNN anchor Jake Tapper and former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson both called the line “disgusting” on social media.
Threat to ABC
On Tuesday, Donald Trump attacked Mary Bruce, another member of the press in Washington, again after questions about Jeffrey Epstein. “It’s not your question that bothers me, it’s your attitude. I think you are a terrible journalist (…) and a terrible person. »
ABC is a shitty company. I think ABC’s license should be revoked. Because your news is so fake and so wrong.
Donald Trump, President of the United States
The Republican billionaire added that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr “should look at this” regarding licensing.
During this exchange, Mr. Trump reiterated that he had “nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein.” He spoke of long ago firing the financier from his luxury club in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, because he was “a sick pervert.”
According to Valérie Beaudoin, attacking journalists has become, for Donald Trump, a “defense mechanism” to dodge questions he does not like.
“With this 2.0 administration, we are even more into personal attacks or confrontations. In any society with a rule of law, normally this would not happen. »
The President of the United States received Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office on Tuesday. He vigorously defended the Saudi crown prince, after questions about the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. He accused the ABC journalist of seeking to “embarrass” his guest, whom he described as a “very good friend”.
“You’re talking about an extremely controversial person. A lot of people didn’t like this gentleman you’re talking about,” the president responded, describing the former columnist of the Washington Post. Mohammed bin Salman “didn’t know anything,” he said, before making the threats to ABC.
However, these are legitimate questions. “It’s the job of journalists, and not having asked them out of fear would have been a serious red flag for democracy,” comments Mme Beaudoin.
Otherwise, on Tuesday, the US Congress approved a bill aimed at forcing the government to make public its file on sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019 before his trial.
For months, Donald Trump had led a real campaign to thwart the holding of this vote in the House, with potentially embarrassing consequences for him.
“This is one of Trump’s few very clear setbacks. He was determined to slow down the vote, and yet he was the one who talked about that during the election campaign. But from now on, he saw clearly that he was going to lose face,” raises Valérie Beaudoin, from the Raoul-Dandurand Chair.
However, she believes that a “psychodrama” could have been avoided if the president had ordered the courts to make the documents public, a lever he has by virtue of executive power. He already did it this year for the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
With Agence France-Presse, BBC, The Guardian and CNN
