Donald Trump’s administration escalated his war with the press — and particularly with women reporters — by invoking a White House correspondent’s children after she simply asked the president a pointed question during an Oval Office Q&A.
CNN reporter Kirsten Holmes on Monday asked the president to respond to recent remarks from Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who had claimed Trump would “rather travel with your aide Natalie Harp and build the ballroom than do your job as president,” Holmes said.
In response, Trump called Ossoff a “Pee-wee Herman look-alike” and deflected from the question about Harp, then shouted “quiet” at Holmes and called her “disrespectful” and a “fake reporter” for asking why he decided to pull back from U.S. and South Korea military drills.
But it didn’t end there. The White House “rapid response” account on X lambasted Holmes for asking a “disgusting and inhumane question” that her children will be “sickened and embarrassed” by.
“Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question,” the White House account wrote Monday. “They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive. It’s quite troubling.”
open image in galleryCNN and Holmes’ colleagues have come to her defense while admonishing the White House for crossing a rarely breached line — referencing someone’s children — when it comes to the president’s targeted attacks against the media in his years-long campaign to undermine critical reporting.
The White House did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment or for information about who wrote the post and manages the X account.
Holmes later appeared on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper and OutFront with Erin Burnett but did not directly address Trump’s personal attacks.
Tapper said Trump responded “as he often does with tough, smart women,” while Burnett said Holmes’s “legitimatic” questions “clearly hit a nerve” with Trump.
Anderson Cooper said on his AC360 that Trump did “that thing he does with reporters, especially women who are doing their jobs.”
“It was certainly not an unreasonable question to ask,” Cooper said. “Did North Korea’s brutal dictator somehow talk the president of the United States into acting against the interests of a long-time democratically governed ally, South Korea?”
open image in galleryA statement from CNN’s corporate communications called Holmes “one of the most respected and accomplished journalists covering the White House.”
She asked Trump a “tough, relevant, and newsworthy question on behalf of the American people,” CNN said.
“Public officials are free to challenge reporting they disagree with, but personal attacks on journalists for asking questions are beneath the office and inconsistent with the principles of a free press,” the network added. “We stand firmly behind Kristen and reject these attacks in the strongest possible terms.”
Other network colleagues also came to her defense.
CNN White House correspondent Alayna Treene called the Rapid Response post “a horrible to thing to say.”
“Kristen is an incredible reporter, person and, above all, mother,” Treene wrote. “I don’t understand such a reaction to a journalist asking the president for his response to something a Democratic senator has leveled against him.”
CNN anchor Dana Bash, who shared CNN’s statement, called Holmes “an outstanding reporter. Period.”
“Kristen is an incredible colleague and an incredible mother, I am so so so impressed by her and everything she’s accomplished,” wrote CNN producer DJ Judd.
“You know what’s disgusting and inhumane?” added CNN White House reporter Betsy Klein. “Bringing her perfect children into this.”
Former CNN reporter Jim Acosta, who has a long history of public clashes with the president, wrote, “Shame on the staffers behind this account.”
“They are the ones who should be sickened and embarrassed,” he added. “Doesn’t get any lower than attacking the children of a journalist doing her job. Kristen is a good reporter. And I’m sure her kids are proud of their mom.”
open image in galleryStephanie Grisham, who served as White House press secretary during Trump’s first term, called the X post “cowardly and pathetic.”
“Don’t hide behind a White House account,” she wrote. “[S]how everyone who the asshat behind the keyboard is.”
The president has spent the last decade raging against a free press he calls “fake news” and the “enemy of the people” while waging a legal war against the media in courtrooms across the country.
He has repeatedly threatened to revoke broadcast licenses for news networks over critical coverage or stories he doesn’t like and has unsuccessfully sued top networks and newspapers for defamation.
Trump’s Federal Communications Commission’s chair Brendan Carr has also launched probes into public broadcasting services NPR and PBS and revived complaints into ABC, CBS and NBC.
But Trump’s most direct attacks routinely target women, including CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who Trump recently berated during the White House Correspondents Association dinner in July. He also walked out of a recent sit-down interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker, who he called “crooked or stupid” before saying “thank you, darling” and leaving the room.
In November, he told Bloomberg News White House correspondent Catherine Lucey “quiet, piggy” when she asked a question about emails from Jeffrey Epstein that referenced Trump.
Trump’s attacks “are attempts to normalize the degradation of the press, diminishing the role of journalists and press freedom as the fourth estate of U.S. democracy,” the International Women’s Media Foundation wrote in a statement last year condemning the president’s “pattern of targeting and harassing women journalists.”
“They also serve as a diversion to prevent further questioning and shut down scrutiny on topics of national importance or those requiring accountability,” the foundation wrote.