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President Donald Trump lashed out at reporters multiple times during a fraud whistleblower announcement on Tuesday.
“Listen to you. Hey, I’m not pointing. You better, you better, I don’t know who the hell you are, but you better be careful,” he said in an obscure threat to one reporter.
“Quiet. Quiet! What’s wrong with you? Are you a sick person? I actually think there’s something wrong with you,” Trump also said during the announcement.
The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg reported that he was the one who was on the receiving end of Trump’s ire in these two moments. They ended up on the White House’s Rapid Response social media page, where they referred to Feinberg as an ableist slur, and on Vice President JD Vance’s social media page, where he called him an “imbecile.”
“For the record, I had an annual physical earlier this month, and I can report I’m in perfect health,” Feinberg said. “I was doing my job, and I’ll be right back at it tomorrow.”
In another instance during the briefing, Trump also sternly shushed a reporter and repeatedly said “WAIT” before moving on to another reporter’s question.
Trump’s outbursts toward reporters on Tuesday came as he was announcing the new $25 million fund dedicated to incentivizing Americans to report fraud. (Feinberg pointed out that a similar fund under a law called the False Claims Act has existed since 1883.)
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