President Donald Trump called White House reporter Yamiche Alcindor “very aggressive” during a press conference inside the Oval Office on Friday.
The remark by Trump came during a press conference after the president signed a bill awarding Congressional Gold Medals to the players of the 1980 Winter Olympic Games. As is typical for any Trump news event, reporters in the room shouted out to the president to ask him questions. As is standard, the president calls on whom he would like to take questions from.
Alcindor, a veteran White House reporter at NBC News, was one of the first reporters Trump called on. The 38-year-old journalist, who is expecting her second child, asked Trump whether he planned on seizing more oil assets from Venezuela.
“It wouldn’t be very smart for me to tell you that. We’re supposed to be a little bit secretive. You’re a very big-time reporter, and I don’t think I want to tell a big-time reporter or a small-time reporter that,” said Trump.
The president’s compliment to Alcindor as “big-time” was a departure from an insult he had hurled at her this past summer. In September, Trump called Alcindor “second-rate” after she asked him whether he was going to “war” with Chicago after he suggested that he would in a social media post.
Despite Trump’s flattery on Friday, however, it didn’t last long. When Alcindor, whom the president verbally attacked during his first term in office, tried to ask Trump another question, she was met with an insult that is historically a racial stereotype for Black Americans.
“Wait, wait. You have to be nice and easy,” Trump said to Alcindor, as she repeatedly shouted, “Mr. President!” to get his attention. He added, “She’s very aggressive.”
Trump then called on another reporter before eventually returning to Alcindor, who asked him about recently released photographs of him and others with child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Friday’s exchange with Alcindor is part of an uptick of Trump’s verbal attacks on female reporters, particularly women of color, covering the White House. Earlier this week, the president lashed out at ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott when she asked him about releasing video footage from a controversial boat strike in the Caribbean Sea.
“Are you committed to releasing the full video?” Scott asked. Trump fired back, “Didn’t I just tell you that? You are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place. Let me just tell you, you are an obnoxious– a terrible reporter. And it’s always the same thing with you. I told you, whatever Pete Hegseth wants to do is OK with me.”
Last month, President Trump told another female reporter, “Quiet, piggy,” when she attempted to ask him a question about releasing the FBI files on Epstein.
Alcindor’s brash encounters with Trump date back years. In 2020, during a news conference about the COVID-19 pandemic response, Alcindor asked Trump about his “responsibility” in combating the deadly virus, considering he had previously disbanded the White House’s pandemic response office.
“What a nasty question,” Trump remarked.
See the latest exchange between Trump and Alcindor below.
