“Are you sick?” Trump snaps at a journalist three times at White House

US President Donald Trump sharply rebuked Andrew Feinberg, a journalist from a British outlet, three times at a press conference in the Oval Office. According to that outlet, he demanded silence and asked whether the reporter was sick. Vice President JD Vance then publicly insulted the journalist.

Trump was talking about a new government programme to reward whistleblowers whose information helps uncover fraud involving federal money: a cash reward is offered. Feinberg asked the head of the White House why people should take part in the programme when existing laws offer much bigger rewards under certain conditions.

“I have no idea who the hell you are, but you should be careful,” Trump later told the journalist, who had already introduced himself and named his outlet. Vance called the question “dishonest in principle”.

“Are you sick?”

When Feinberg tried to ask other questions, Trump stopped him. “Quiet. Quiet. What is wrong with you?” he said angrily when the journalist wanted to ask about the rebuilding of a public golf course in Washington. “What is wrong with you? Are you sick? I think there really is something wrong with you,” the president concluded.

The journalist himself wrote on X: “Trump lost his temper and ordered me to ‘be quiet’ in the Oval Office. Then it got personal.” Vance said on the same network that Trump had put Feinberg in his place, and crudely insulted him: “President Donald J. Trump destroyed the imbecile ‘journalist’ Andrew Feinberg for inappropriate behaviour in the Oval Office.”

Attacks on the press are routine for Trump. In April he replied to a woman reporter who asked what he would say to Americans wondering how long the war will last: “You are such a disgrace.” Last November, aboard the presidential plane, he cut off Bloomberg correspondent Catherine Lucey, who was asking about the Epstein files: “Quiet, piggy.”

Read next
Who Is Katie Zacharia, Trump's New White House Press Secretary?
Trump’s Iran Remark About Los Angeles and San Diego Draws Bipartisan Rebuke
Trump Says He Should Have Won a Pulitzer and Faults 2018 Russia Reporting Winners

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz