What other times has Donald Trump insulted individual journalists by name?
Executive summary
Donald Trump has repeatedly insulted individual journalists by name across multiple years, singling out both specific reporters and outlets with epithets like “stupid,” “piggy,” “ugly,” “stupid and nasty,” and labeling the press broadly as “the enemy of the people,” a pattern documented in coverage from 2016 through 2025 [1] [2] [3]. Recent months in late 2025 saw a concentrated burst of personal attacks directed especially at female reporters such as Catherine Lucey, Katie Rogers, Kaitlan Collins and Nancy Cordes, generating media backlash and official responses [3] [4] [5] [2].
1. Pattern and notable named targets: a repeated playbook
Across his public statements and social posts Trump has repeatedly singled out named journalists, for example calling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins “stupid and nasty” in a Truth Social post and deriding CNN and other outlets as “fake news” [5] [1]. In November 2025 he told Bloomberg correspondent Catherine Lucey to “quiet, piggy,” an exchange that was widely reported and defended by the White House press secretary [3]. He called New York Times reporter Katie Rogers “third rate” and “ugly, both inside and out” after a Times article about his age and stamina, prompting the paper to defend its reporting [4].
2. The late‑2025 flare-up: multiple on‑air and social attacks
In a concentrated period in November–December 2025 Trump used demeaning language toward several women on or off Air Force One and on Truth Social, including snapping “Are you stupid?” at CBS’s Nancy Cordes during a press exchange and berating Catherine Lucey as “piggy” when she pressed him on Epstein-related questions [2] [3]. Media outlets catalogued a string of insults over a single month—“piggy,” “stupid,” “incapable,” “ugly”—that many observers described as an uptick in personalization and misogynistic tone [6] [7].
3. A longer history: insults dating back to the campaign and first term
This personalized style is not new: Trump criticized Megyn Kelly during the 2016 campaign, clashed publicly with Jim Acosta in 2018 and used the “enemy of the people” label for the press repeatedly through his earlier presidency, a repetition noted by archival reporting and summaries [7] [8] [1]. Human rights and press‑freedom organizations tracked daily attacks and warned that the rhetoric was part of an intensifying campaign against journalistic independence [9].
4. Gendered pattern and expert interpretation
Multiple outlets and experts highlighted that many of the named targets in 2025 were women and that several insults focused on appearance or demeaned competence, prompting commentary that the attacks fit a gendered pattern of undermining female journalists’ credibility [10] [11] [7]. Coverage from EL PAÍS and Newsweek emphasized how critics view these barbs as reinforcing sexist tropes and potentially exposing reporters to harassment [10] [11].
5. Institutional responses and defenses
News organizations named in attacks—The New York Times, CNN and others—issued defenses of their reporters and stated that name‑calling would not deter reporting, while the White House at times defended or downplayed the president’s language, illustrating a split between media institutions and administration spokespeople [4] [3] [5]. Press‑freedom groups and watchdogs documented the frequency of insults and framed them as part of a broader threat to journalistic norms [9].
6. Bottom line: episodic names, persistent strategy
Documented incidents show Trump repeatedly attacking individual journalists by name over nearly a decade—on social platforms, at rallies, aboard Air Force One and in press settings—with a recurring emphasis on certain reporters and outlets and an escalatory flare in late 2025 that focused public attention on the tactic [1] [2] [3] [5]. Reporting documents the pattern and reactions, but the sources provided do not offer a comprehensive list of every named instance; further archival review would be needed to produce a complete catalogue beyond the highlighted examples [8] [9].