Anatomy of a Trump Insult

Donald Trump, as a creator of insults, is not a poet. But he is prolific—no critic can doubt his commitment to his craft—and his body of work, whatever it may lack in artistry, is notable for its volume alone. Every time the president calls someone a “dog” or a “pig” or a “horseface,” he solidifies his status as the GOAT. As a result, whether the insults are personalized attacks (“Sleepy Joe,” “Shifty Schiff,” “Pocahontas”) or general ones (“crazy,” “nasty,” “dumb as a rock”), they form, together, a data set: a collection of text that can be categorized, analyzed, and mined for insights—not into the person being targeted but into the man who does the aiming.

This week, a video went viral: a clip from an interview with the president conducted by the Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker. The clip owes some of its popularity to its oddness. The sit-down, filmed in Wisconsin, was set in a barn, with a John Deere tractor in the background and the sound of rain thundering on the roof. But the video has spread, as well, because the abasements that it broadcasts are at once so familiar and, in their way, so newly revealing of the man. They also reaffirm a specific trend. If the president’s put-downs have themes, many can be found in one particular line of the corpus: Insults → Insults Directed at Journalists → Insults Directed at Women Journalists → Insults Directed at Women Journalists of Color.

The interview began as typical Sunday-show fare. The journalist and the president discussed current political events, including the economy and the war in Iran. The conversation then turned to the recent California primary, and the president steered the discussion to another of his reliable themes: supposed election malfeasance. The state’s votes have been counted fraudulently, he said—just as the votes were, he added, in the 2020 presidential election. Welker responded to the assertions (the latter of which has been so thoroughly debunked that it is commonly referred to as the Big Lie) exactly as Meet the Press’s moderator should have: journalistically. Why was he claiming fraud in California’s election? What was his evidence?

Welker’s follow-ups were both polite and squarely within the bounds of a presidential interview. (“Do you have the evidence to support that?” is not, by any stretch, a “gotcha” question.) It didn’t matter. The questions ended the interview. More precisely, the questions sent Trump into a fit of pique. “I’ve had enough,” he said, before storming away.

His melodramatic exit transformed the segment from standard Sunday programming into a piece of gossip and a matter of breaking news. The departure was not, in itself, the novelty. The truly compelling development was the video’s capture of something that Americans don’t always get to see: an immediate, up-close study of their president’s rage.

Welker’s question, and Trump’s wrath at her asking it, led the showman in chief to break character as the cameras rolled. This was the crux of the drama: the tense exchange that took place before the climactic scene. For years, Americans have been reading reports of the president’s temper—fits of fury that erupt suddenly and escalate rapidly. On Sunday, they saw it firsthand. They saw how Welker’s basic question provoked him, and the ease with which his annoyance sent him into an insult spiral. Trump, triggered, called Welker and NBC “crooked.” He informed her that their conversation was over. Perhaps even more striking, though, was what he did next: He thanked Welker. He called her “darling.”

This was something of an innovation. Trump’s denigrations of women journalists, if you parse the data, tend to adhere to seven fixed categories. The president, typically, will insult:

1. Her looks (“piggy,” “ugly”)
2. Her intelligence (“stupid,” “dumb”)
3. Her professional capability (“terrible reporter,” “doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing”)
4. Her personality (“obnoxious,” “nasty,” “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile”)
5. Her character (“crooked,” “You are so bad”)
6. Her body (“blood coming out of her wherever”)
7. Her sanity (“crazy”)

Trump’s insults to Welker were, in this sense, something of a plot twist. “Darling” was incoherent, given the context: an epithet that seemed plucked from the wrong playbook, as if some prankster had slipped a guide to modern chivalry inside the president’s well-worn copy of Demeaning Women for Dummies. It came from a president who has been systematically removing women advisers from his administration. It came from a man who has been accused by more than 25 women of sexual assault (he has denied the claims), and who has been held legally liable to one of his accusers.

The outburst that Welker provoked—and that she kept provoking, simply by staying calm and refusing to be flustered—was blunt and loud and insistent. This is what the video captured: The president, lobbing insults at a woman who was not offended by them, losing his temper in a manner that is practically literal. You watch him lose control in something like real time. His tempo quickens. His volume escalates. His rage overcomes him—and grows, it seems, as he realizes how little effect it has on his interlocutor. (“Insubordinate” is another insult the president has aimed at women reporters.)

And then: The anger seems to dissipate, as quickly as it came. Trump thanks Welker for her time. He slows his cadence. He quiets his volume. He calls her “darling.” The epithet is not a concession (the database of Trumpian apologies has yet to receive any inputs). It reads, instead, as an attempt to restore order, to regain control. Darling is patient. It is kind. It is also a feint. It is rage in the guise of gallantry. It is one more insult; it offers one more insight.

A request for evidence is not an affront. Facts are not offensive. An interview is not a power struggle—unless you make it one. But Trump, having failed to ruffle Welker, somehow had to put her in her place. Thus he reached into his prodigious catalog of belittlement. Look what you made me do, darling, he said to the journalist who was doing her job.