Once again, Trump showed that he is a thin-skinned, racist, misogynistic bully. For some reason, he felt the need to hold a press conference declaring we're leading in a metric that does not exist (lives saved, which is not a thing you can measure...) and when reporters challenged him on his myriad lies and double standards, he went into familiar Defensive Donny mode.
He turned particularly disgusting and abusive at the end, towards CBS' Weijia Jiang, when she asked him why he continues to present COVID-19 information in competitive terms with other nations.
TRUMP: Yes.
JIANG: Why does that matter? Why is this a global competition to you if every day Americans are still losing their lives and we're still seeing more cases every day?
TRUMP: Well, they're losing their lives everywhere in the world. And maybe that's a question you should ask CHINA. Don't ask me. Ask CHINA that question, okay? When you ask them that question you may get a very unusual answer. Yes, behind you, please.
JIANG: Sir, why are you saying that to me specifically? That I should ask China?
TRUMP: I'm telling you. I'm not saying it specifically to anybody. I'm saying it to anybody that asks a nasty question.
JIANG: That's not a nasty question. Why does it matter?
TRUMP: Okay. Anybody else? Please, go ahead in the back. No, it's okay.
COLLINS: You pointed to me. I have two questions.
TRUMP: Next.
COLLINS: You called on me.
TRUMP: I did, and you didn't respond, and now i'm calling on the young lady in the back.
COLLINS: I just wanted to let my colleague finish.
TRUMP: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much, appreciate it. Thank you very much.
BLITZER: Very, very ugly ending to that one hour appearance by the president in the Rose Garden, refusing to answer our own White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins' question and going after another reporter, several reporters in the press in that one-hour exchange.
The indomitable Jiang was absolutely right to challenge him, and kudos also to Kaitlan Collins for allowing Jiang to follow up in order to be able to call Trump out. That is the sort of solidarity the press pool needs to be showing one another all the f*cking time against this monster.
And of course because he cannot handle one woman standing up to him, let alone two, he tries to punish Collins by not letting her ask her questions. When she insists, he crumbles like the weak-ass, paper-thin-skinned coward that he is and ends the presser right there.
This is what happens when you stand up to a bully and an abuser in public. They cower and retreat.
