SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
There is nothing unusual about Donald Trump snapping at a journalist. Yesterday on Capitol Hill, he demanded to know which outlet a reporter worked for, and after being told, replied: “I don’t even know what the hell that is. Get yourself a real job.”
But today’s Oval Office meltdown at NBC’s White House correspondent Peter Alexander stood out, not only for its personal meanness but the obsessiveness with which Trump kept returning to the subject and beating up on Alexander long after the conversation had moved on.
Donald Trump and Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, Emir of Qatar, at a signing ceremony in Doha last week.Credit: Getty, digitally tinted
Alexander’s crime was to ignore a video Trump had just played to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, alleging genocide against white South African farmers.
Instead, he launched into a question about the US government accepting the gift of a luxury Boeing 747-8 valued at $US150 – 180 million from Qatar, to be used as Air Force One.
“What does this have to do with a Qatari jet?” Trump asked. “It’s NBC trying to get off the subject of what you just saw. You are a real – you know, you’re a terrible reporter.”
The president then told Alexander he was “not smart enough” to be a reporter and should go back to NBC’s studios. Brian Roberts – the chief executive of parent company Comcast – and other executives “ought to be investigated”, he said.
“You’re a disgrace. No more questions from you,” Trump went on, pointing his finger. Others tried to ask more questions, but Trump wasn’t finished. “His name is Peter something, he’s a terrible reporter,” he said, and told Alexander to be “quiet”.
Donald Trump snapped instantly after an NBC reporter began asking about his acceptance of a Qatari Boeing 747.Credit: AP
Alexander never actually got to finish the question about the Qatari plane. For all we know, he might have wanted to ask how Trump had managed to win such a great deal for the US government. But the president’s instinct told him the question would be probing.
Trump has been accused of corruption over the gift. Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer labelled it “the largest foreign bribe in history”, arguing it “reeks of corruption and naked self-enrichment”. The jet is set to be handed to Trump’s presidential library foundation after his term.
Democrats have condemned Trump and threatened to insert clauses into defence bills to would block the deal. But some Republicans are also nervous about the optics and the substance of accepting such a gift from Qatar, which has funded organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood and even Hamas.
Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and avid Trump backer, criticised the move in several posts on X – though she issued a grovelling apology this week, saying: “I know that he is never going to jeopardise our national security with the deals he makes for our country.”
Back in the Oval Office with Ramaphosa, Trump returned again and again to lambast the media for caring more about the plane than what he claims is a genocide against white South African farmers.
“If the news wasn’t fake like NBC, which is fake news, totally, one of the worst, ABC, NBC, CBS, horrible. But if they weren’t fake news like this jerk that we have here, if we had real reporters, they’d be covering it,” he said, referring to Alexander.
“They’ll have him talking about ‘why did a country give an aeroplane to the United States Air Force’. Not to me. To the United States Air Force, so they could help us out because we need an Air Force One.
A Boeing 747-8 in the colour scheme used by the Qatari royal family at San Antonio in Texas earlier this month.Credit: nnariwood
“That’s what that idiot talks about after viewing a thing where thousands of people are dead.” All told, Trump called Alexander an “idiot” twice, a “jerk” once and a bad or terrible reporter at least four times.
Meanwhile, Ramaphosa seemed to grow weary of Trump talking about the Qatari gift. “I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you,” he said.
Trump replied: “I wish you did, I’d take it. If your country offered the United States Air Force a plane, I would take it.”
“Okay,” Ramaphosa said, and tried to move on.
It was, on the whole, an ugly and awkward encounter. But it shows Trump is sensitive to questions about his Qatari friends, and should tell Democrats it’s an area of vulnerability.
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