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President Donald Trump lashed out at another female reporter while taking questions from the White House press corps on Thanksgiving Day, asking her, “Are you stupid?”
While talking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, Nov. 27, CBS News White House correspondent Nancy Cordes asked Trump about the Washington, D.C., shooting on Nov. 26 that killed one National Guard member and injured another.
Suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, an Afghan national, drove from his home in Washington state to the nation’s capital, where he allegedly shot the two troops just blocks from the White House, authorities said.
West Virginia National Guard Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from her injuries and National Guard Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, was seriously wounded.
Quickly taken into custody, Lakanwal now faces multiple charges including first-degree murder, U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro announced on Fox & Friends on Friday, Nov. 28.
U.S. Attorney’s Office via AP
At Thursday’s press conference, Cordes asked Trump about Lakanwal, who had previously worked with the CIA as a member of a “partner force” in Afghanistan, according to CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
“U.S. officials say the suspect worked very closely with the CIA in Afghanistan for years and he was vetted and the vetting came up clean,” Cordes said.
Trump replied, “He went cuckoo. He went nuts and that happens too, it happens too often with these people.”
Holding up a picture of dozens of Afghans stuffed on an airplane, he said, “Look, this is how they come in. They’re standing on top of each other.”
“There was no vetting or anything,” Trump continued. “They came in unvetted. And we have a lot of others in this country and we’re going to get them out. But they go cuckoo. Something happens to them.”
Lakanwal was among hundreds of Afghans allowed into the U.S. under the Biden administration’s “Operation Allies Welcome” program in 2021, during the chaotic withdrawal from Kabul.
Pete Marovich/Getty; Michele Crowe/CBS via Getty
Trump became irritated when Cordes challenged him about Lakanwal’s vetting, saying, “Your DOJ IG just reported this year that there was thorough vetting by DHS and by the FBI of these Afghans who were brought into the U.S., so why do you blame the Biden administration?”
Without missing a beat, Trump said, “Because they let ’em in. Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person?”
He continued, “Because they came in on a plane along with thousands of other people that shouldn’t be here, and you’re just asking questions because you’re a stupid person.”
He went on, saying, “They were unvetted. They were unchecked. There were many of ’em. And they came in on big planes, and it was disgraceful.”
Once they are here, he insisted, “it’s almost impossible” to get people to leave.
Questioning Cordes’ intelligence was the latest instance of Trump lashing out at the female journalists who cover him.
On Nov. 26, Trump called The New York Times’ Katie Rogers “ugly, both inside and out” in a lengthy social media post after the outlet published a story about how his age has seemingly affected his schedule during his second term.
Those remarks came less than two weeks after Trump hushed Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey when she asked if there is anything incriminating in the Epstein emails, pointing at her and angrily saying, “Quiet. Quiet, Piggy.”
He then called ABC News’ Mary Bruce a “terrible person and a terrible reporter” when she similarly asked a question about his ties to Epstein during a Nov. 18 press conference.
The White House has doubled down in support of the president in response to backlash over Trump’s recent attacks.
On Nov. 20, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested that her boss’s frankness to journalists’ faces is more “respectful” than going behind their backs or avoiding questions altogether.
“Look, the president is very frank & honest with everyone in this room,” she said during a press briefing with White House correspondents. “You’ve all seen it yourselves. You’ve all experienced it yourselves. And I think it’s one of the many reasons the American people reelected this president, because of his frankness.”
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After Trump called Rogers “ugly,” a White House spokesperson leaned on the same defense in a statement to PEOPLE, saying, “President Trump has never been politically correct, never holds back, and in large part, the American people re-elected him for his transparency.”
“This has nothing to do with gender,” the spokesperson insisted, adding, “it has everything to do with the fact that the President’s and the public’s trust in the media is at all time lows.”
PEOPLE has reached out to the White House and to CBS News for comments on Trump’s latest comments.
