TRUMP’S ASSAULT ON A “TERRIBLE” REPORTER: A REMINDER THAT POLITICS WORK WHEN THEY'RE PERSONAL SAUDI CROWN PRINCE Mohammed bin Salman, left, and President Donald J. Trump at the Oval Office Nov. 18 where Trump trashed a reporter whose questions he didn't like. PHOTO CREDIT - C-Span screenshot SITTING NEXT TO A MAN who knows a thing or two about silencing a journalist, Donald Trump unloaded a barrage of insults, slurs and threats at a White House reporter. “You’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter,” Trump admonished Mary Bruce, chief White House correspondent for ABC News, during a Nov. 18 question and answer session in the Oval Office. As a once-working reporter myself, although not at the White House level, the president’s attacks on Mary Bruce made me furious. It felt personal. Granted, Trump did not, as he had a few days earlier with different woman reporter, address Bruce as “Piggy.” But in multiple exchanges, Trump savaged Bruce professionally and personally, and threatened government action to undermine the viability of the entire ABC network. “… I think the way you ask a question with the anger and the meanness is terrible. You ought to go back and learn how to be a reporter. No more questions from you.” Looking on was Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, of Saudi Arabia, who allegedly knows firsthand how to ensure that a troublesome journalist asks “no more questions.” The prince is suspected by a variety of intelligence sources of ordering the gruesome 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, at a Saudi consulate in Turkey. A 15-person Saudi hit squad, including members of the prince’s bodyguard detail, are believed to have subdued Khashoggi with a drug, then used a plastic bag to suffocate him. His body was sawed into pieces for easier transport out of the facility. Now, seven years later in the Oval Office, Trump was attacking another reporter, and incidentally, exonerating the Saudi prince from his murderous history. “You know, it’s not the question that I mind. It’s your attitude,” Trump told Bruce. “I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions. You start off with a man (the prince) who’s highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question.”
Trump went on a rant about how Epstein had given money to Democrats, but nothing to him. “People are wise to the hoax, and ABC, your company, your crappy company, is one of the perpetrators. And I’ll tell you something, I’ll tell you something – I think the license should be taken away from ABC, because your news is so fake, and it’s so wrong.” Outrageous. You’d expect the president of the United States to be against murder. But here he defends the man allegedly behind the grotesque Khashoggi killing. You’d expect the president of the United States to defend the victim – Khashoggi was a United States resident as well as a Saudi critic. But here he blames the victim, suggesting the columnist had it coming. You’d expect the president of the United States to be horrified by the details of the bizarre killing. Instead, he passes it off as just another of those things that “happen” in one’s life. You’d expect that the president of the United States would understand the role of journalists, professionally required to ask relevant questions of those in power, especially dictators. Instead, he suggests the obligation of a reporter was to play Oval Office hostess, worried about embarrassing a guest, rather than carrying out her journalistic duties. IF YOU’VE MADE IT THIS FAR, you might have some objections with my singling out this particular outrage. Surely, browbeating a reporter is hardly the worst of Donald Trump’s sins, especially during the awful months of his second term. How about the people who will die or suffer because of lack of federal money for medical care, housing and food? How about the people snatched off city streets by masked thugs, then imprisoned and later deported? What about people in other countries dying after American medical aid was halted? How about farmers whose iffy economics have been upended by tariffs? Transsexuals denied employment and medical care as the government has turned them into pariahs? How about people who are drowned in floods and incinerated by wildfires because of worsening climate change, accelerated by Trump’s war on science? Guilty, on all counts. My outrage is personal if not downright selfish. I feel for Mary Bruce because I know what it’s like when a news source attacks a reporter, challenging her or his credibility, freezing access to sources and information. Reporters are – news flash – people. They want to be liked, welcomed, praised. They don’t want to be yelled at, made fun of, degraded, rebuked, shunned, mocked, have their integrity and tradecraft challenged and their corporate boss’s economic viability undermined. And surely, no reporter wants to be drugged, suffocated and sawed by into pieces. So, you can understand how a career journalist might sympathize with Catherine Lucey, the Bloomberg News reporter who had asked Trump aboard Air Force One about the Epstein case, only to be told: “Quiet! Quiet, Piggy!” And then this week’s fusillade against the “terrible reporter” Mary Bruce in the Oval Office.  SELF-CENTERED, FOR SURE. But also, politically potent. My guess is that every American will have a personal grievance with Trump before his term is over – perhaps, before his first year in office is completed. It’s one thing to be opposed philosophically, politically, theoretically, to Donald Trump’s many attacks on democracy, civil society, science, racial justice, the environment and the Constitution. But it’s quite a different proposition when a Trump offense becomes personal to you as an individual, or your family, your clan, your profession, neighbor or friend – when it gets under your skin, when it hits home, when it becomes real. Already, millions of Americans have been touched directly by Trump’s abuses. Researchers whose life-changing experiments have been cut short. Black men and women feeling the invisible but real bite of Trump’s racism. Physicians and their patients when the administration makes vaccinations suspect. Parents shopping for groceries. It’s true I identify with how it feels to be belittled, mocked, insulted, slandered and intimidated by a news source simply because a journalist is doing his or her job. But our best hope for preserving American democracy is when every one of us understands that we have an actual stake in the outcome. That’s when we are likely to donate, participate and most importantly, remember to vote. Politics works best when they become personal. Here are links to some of the sourced used in this post:
1 Comment
scott molloy
11/21/2025 11:30:42 am
Brian, a wonderful rage against the machine. I think the "don't follow unlawful military directives will detonate something. Remember VN. Draft refusal, hell no we won't go, troops just walking away and more. Just one person will start the ball rolling. Best, Scott Leave a Reply. |
BRIAN C. JONES
I'VE BEEN a reporter and writer for 61 years, long enough to have learned that journalists don't know very much, although I've met some smart ones.
Mainly, what reporters know comes from asking other people questions and fretting about their answers. This blog is a successor to one inspired by our dog, Phoebe, who was smart, sweet and the antithesis of Donald Trump. She died Feb. 3, 2022, and I don't see getting over that very soon. Occasionally, I think about trying to reach her via cell phone. |
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