The three most unhinged things Donald Trump has said this week as the release of Epstein files loom
Donald Trump saying outrageous things is nothing new, he is after all the man who gave us “grab ’em by the p***y”.
But this week he seems to have hit a gob-smacking new low as pressure mounts ahead of the likely release of Epstein files. And women are bearing the brunt of his displeasure.
Brace yourself, here’s some of the worst things he’s said this week.
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The US president lost his cool when he was peppered with questions over the Epstein files, with one female reporter coming in for some despicable name calling.
Mr Trump was speaking with members of the press aboard Air Force One, headed for his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida on November 14, when they began questioning him about what his former friend paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein meant when he said in one email that “of course (Trump) knew about the girls”.
The president told reporters there was nothing to incriminate him in the trove of documents that he had at that point been opposed to releasing, and instead said they pointed to former president Bill Clinton and former treasury secretary Larry Summers.
When Bloomberg White House reporter Catherine Lucey asked a follow-up, questioning why, then, he would be opposed to releasing the files, Trump snapped.
Waving his pointer finger at her he snarled “Quiet. Quiet, piggy”.
Even for Mr Trump, who has a history of denigrating female reporters, this was shocking.
Worse, the White House has defended his comments
“This reporter behaved in an inappropriate and unprofessional way towards her colleagues on the plane. If you’re going to give it, you have to be able to take,” an official said without providing any evidence of inappropriate behaviour by the reporter.
Khashoggi murder: ‘Things happen’
The gruesome murder and dismembering of Washington Post opinion columnist Jamal Kashoggi in a Saudi consulate in Turkey in 2018, caused a global tidal wave of anger and revulsion.
The US’ own spy agency, the CIA, laid the blame at the feet of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
But in a short flippant response to a question posed by Mary Bruce, the chief White House correspondent for ABC News, in the Oval Office during the Prince’s visit on Tuesday local time, Mr Trump dismissed the importance of the killing and any fault by his friend and his family’s close business ally.
Seemingly hinting that it was OK because Mr Khashoggi was a controversial figure.
“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen, but (Mohammed) knew nothing about it,” Mr Trump said.
“And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”
The prince denied responsibility and said it was “painful to hear” about anyone losing his life for “no real purpose.”
“We did all the right steps of investigation, et cetera, in Saudi Arabia, and we’ve improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that,” he said. “And it’s painful and it’s a huge mistake. And we are doing our best that this doesn’t happen again.”
‘Horrible, insubordinate’
Mr Trump wasn’t done with berating Ms Bruce, though. He later returned to roast her for asking the prince a “horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question”.
He then laid into her for a question about why the White House was waiting on congressional action to release the Epstein files. “Why not just do it now?” she asked.
“It’s not the question that I mind,” Trump said. “It’s your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions.”
Mr Trump said the broadcast license should be stripped from the ABC because “your news is so fake and it’s so wrong”.
“And we have a great (FCC) commissioner, the chairman, who should look at that because I think when you come in and you’re 97 per cent negative to Trump. And then Trump wins the election in a landslide. That means, obviously, your news is not credible. And you’re not credible as a reporter.”
