Donald Trump’s Trickle-Down Misogyny

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It’s perhaps not surprising that Donald Trump, a man who has many criticisms of the press and a long history of demeaning his female critics, reserves special rage for reporters who happen to be women. The latest example happened in the Oval Office yesterday, when Trump called CNN’s Kristen Holmes “a loud, boisterous person” and told her to “be quiet.” The president has attacked female journalists before, but it’s what happened next that really sets this outburst apart—and says a lot about how Trump’s misogyny is infecting the rest of his party.

Holmes, who has covered Trump for years, asked the president to respond to comments that Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, made over the weekend accusing Trump of neglecting his presidential duties by prioritizing his proposed White House ballroom and traveling with an aide named Natalie Harp (more on that later). Trump responded relatively civilly, calling Ossoff a “Pee-wee Herman look-alike” before going on a tear about the ballroom’s virtues. But later, when Holmes piggybacked on a colleague’s question about Trump wanting to scale back U.S. military drills with South Korea, the president erupted. “Quiet, quiet, quiet,” he said, pointing at Holmes and asking where she worked. “Fake news,” Trump snapped after she said CNN, raising his voice as she tried to repeat her question. “You’re a loud—you’re a loud, boisterous person. You’re fake news. Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet!”

Not great. But is this really different from how Trump has berated other reporters in the past?

Unfortunately, there’s more. After the Oval Office scrum, an X account run by the White House, called Rapid Response 47, twice posted about Holmes’ question about Ossoff. The first post called Holmes “a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession.” The second got more personal: “Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question,” it read. “They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive.”

CNN released a statement praising Holmes for asking “a tough, relevant, and newsworthy question on behalf of the American people” and calling personal insults “beneath the office.” Other media figures also spoke up. “ Just disgusting behavior by an anonymous account ,” Chuck Todd, a former Meet the Press moderator, wrote of the post that mentioned Holmes’ children. “This is so cowardly & pathetic,” posted Stephanie Grisham, a former Trump press secretary turned critic. “Doesn’t an attack against a family undermine the GOP’s family-values messaging?” Holmes’ CNN colleague Brian Stelter wondered .

We can’t know for sure, but he may have been mad about her earlier reference to Ossoff—and Ossoff’s to Harp. Harp, 35, is a particularly obsequious Trump aide and one of the few White House staffers who secretly boarded a military plane with the president via an airport catering truck after Iran threatened to attack Air Force One last month.