The relationship between the Trump administration and the press has entered a new and more volatile stage. In recent weeks, the president has stepped up his clashes with female members of the White House press corps, calling them “ugly,” “piggy,” and “stupid.”
Asked by The Pavlovic Today whether he was concerned about the tone the President had taken toward journalists, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries had a lot to say.
“The tone that has consistently been adopted by Donald Trump toward members of the free and fair press generally, and specifically most recently directed at female reporters, is disgusting, unbecoming of a president, unconscionable, unacceptable, and un-American,” Jeffries said.
For Jeffries, the President’s insults are not merely crude outbursts but a window into how the Commander-in-Chief understands power. The House Democratic leader argues that Trump’s rhetoric is “part of the reason why Donald Trump’s approval rating is at 36%.”
Such behavior from the occupant of the Oval Office — the use of personal attacks to deflect questions he would rather not answer — points, in Jeffries’s view, to a president who regards scrutiny as a threat and the press as an enemy rather than a democratic safeguard.
“The American people know that Donald Trump and Republican control of the House and the Senate has been a disaster for them,” said Jeffries.
Instead of actually focusing “on the issues that matter,” specifically the high cost of living or fixing a “broken” health care system, Republicans, Jeffries said, “continue to engage in personal attacks against folks — ad hominem assaults on the character of individuals who are just doing their jobs.”
It was here that Jeffries widened the lens. The insults, he suggested, are not isolated. They sit inside a larger story about American governance and the erosion of constitutional boundaries.
“We’re supposed to provide a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch,” Jeffries said.
Citing James Madison, he noted that Congress was designed to be a “rival” to the presidency, not its subordinate. But in Jeffries’s telling, that ideal has collapsed under unified Republican control of the U.S. Congress. “That’s not what Republicans have done,” he said. “These people are not rivals. They are a reckless rubber stamp for Donald Trump’s extreme agenda.”
He next turned to the role of the free press in America.
“Connected to the fabric of our democracy is the free and fair press — and Donald Trump, of course, is behaving more like a wannabe king. He’s uninterested in the scrutiny that comes from being part of American democracy. Part of that scrutiny is the Congress. Part of that scrutiny is the judiciary. And part of that scrutiny, of course, should always be the free and fair press,” Jeffries told The Pavlovic Today.
A Public Database of “Media Offenders”
Jeffries’ remarks came on the day The New York Times filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon, Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell, challenging new restrictions on press access.
At the same time, the administration unveiled a public-facing “Media Bias Portal” that names journalists as “media offender of the week” and invites readers to report examples of supposed media bias against the Trump Administration. Several members of the White House Correspondents’ Association have already been listed.
The site goes further, calling on the public to help catalogue perceived wrongdoing by the press.
“So-called ‘journalists’ have made it impossible to identify every false or misleading story, which is why help from the American people is essential,” the White House press office said in a statement.
The request — for citizens to submit their own evidence of bias — marks an unusual turn in the relationship between the government and the press, effectively crowdsourcing complaints against reporters who cover the administration.
This time around, the President’s clash with the press started on February 11, 2025, when White House officials informed The Associated Press that its reporters would no longer have access to the Oval Office unless they began using the term Gulf of America.
On February 21, 2025, the AP filed a lawsuit against three White House officials, arguing that the ban is unconstitutional and poses a direct threat to press freedom in the United States.
“The White House’s indefinite denial of the AP’s access was based on the content and perceived viewpoint of the AP’s reporting and editorial decisions, and constituted impermissible retaliation against the AP based on its constitutionally protected activity in ways that would chill the speech of similarly situated reasonable individuals,” the lawsuit states.
Trump attacks female reporters
President Trump has frequently clashed with the White House press corps calling them “fake news,” but his focus on women has become more pointed.
For most of modern history, women were a small minority in the briefing room. Today, they occupy many of the most consequential beats. They are also increasingly the targets.
The latest journalist to anger Trump is Katie Rogers of The New York Times calling her “ugly“. Earlier this month, he told Catherine Lucey of Bloomberg News to “Quiet, piggy,” aboard Air Force One when she asked about files connected to Jeffrey Epstein.
Later in November, he berated in the Oval Office Mary Bruce of ABC News for a question she posed to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Women in White House and State Department journalism have travelled a long road. There was a time when this work belonged almost entirely to men, and reporters like Andrea Mitchell were among the few who broke into a beat that shut women out. The fact that so many women now cover the centers of power in Washington is not just a change in optics — it is a change in who gets to witness and record the actions of the state.
But asking questions still carries a price. Asking hard questions carries an even higher one. Today, that price may be an insult, a public shaming, or being told you are “ugly on the inside and out.” Such attacks are designed to make reporters hesitate — to think twice before asking the questions that most need to be asked.
A free society, cannot survive without a free press. No president, no politician should expect to have an easy ride in their interviews with the press. Answering tough questions is part of being in politics.
Journalism matters because it becomes the record of our time, the evidence by which future generations will judge what we chose to do, where we failed, and whether we showed courage when it was required. And make no mistake: they will judge us.
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