President Trump had a few choice words for a Reuters reporter Thursday after the guy decided to poke the bear on the way back to Washington. Stepping off a plane following a campaign rally in South Carolina, Trump called the reporter “disgusting” and “way out of shape,” and told him, “You look like hell.”
The whole thing started when the Reuters reporter asked why Trump was no longer planning to attend a Saturday rally in Kansas for Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, who is in a competitive reelection race. Trump said Marshall is “doing very well,” that he doesn’t feel he has to make the trip, and that he’d hold a tele-rally instead while keeping his Friday travel plans to Florida. Simple enough, right? Apparently not for this reporter.
The reporter decided to push further, asking whether the cancellation might mean Trump is “sick of traveling.” Trump, who has had a raspy voice the past couple of days, was not exactly charmed by the framing. “Oh, you’re sick to ask that question. You are sick,” he fired back. Then came the full review. Trump confronting the Reuters reporter, Trump looked the guy dead in the eye and said, “You’ve been following me for two weeks. I feel perfect. You are disgusting. Put yourself in shape. You look like hell.” Then he walked away, which is a pretty solid exit.
Look, nobody is going to confuse this for a gentle exchange at a garden party. But the media has spent years treating every presidential sneeze as a constitutional crisis, so maybe it should not shock anyone that a president who has been barnstorming the country loses a little patience when a reporter tries to turn a schedule change into a health scare story. Two weeks on the road and Trump was out there doing rallies in South Carolina. That is not exactly the behavior of a man too sick to show up.
Marshall’s Kansas race remains competitive, and Trump said he plans to support him with a tele-rally. The president heads to Florida on Friday before that. As for the Reuters reporter, he is presumably fine, though he may want to take Trump’s fitness advice under consideration. One thing is certain: if the press corps was hoping Trump would mellow out heading into the midterms, Thursday’s tarmac moment was a pretty clear answer.
