Donald Trump lashed out at a female reporter who asked him about renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool amid the war in Iran and high gas prices.
Trump made a surprise visit Thursday to the National Mall landmark, which is in the middle of a resurfacing project to address water leakage, dirt, and stains ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations this summer.
Trump complimented the “good-looking” crew at work when ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott asked him about the project, which he said would cost $2 million.
“Mr. President, you are here against the backdrop of the war in Iran. Why focus on all these projects right now? We’re still seeing gas prices soaring?” Scott asked as Trump interrupted.
“You know why? Because I want to keep our country beautiful and safe. Beautiful also,” the 79-year-old repeated.
Trump then rambled on about “dirt” and how “disgusting” Washington, D.C. was before he called in National Guard members to collect trash and take up various beautification projects—things that the National Park Service was meant for, but whose funding he cut.
“You probably don’t see dirt,” he said, gesturing to Scott. “But I do.”
“And if you were to walk down this—this pond... they had to take 11 or 12 truckloads of garbage out of that lake, out of that water," he continued, despite the reflecting pool being neither a pond nor a lake.
Trump then got personal with Scott.
“That’s such a stupid question that you asked. We’re fixing up the reflecting pond,” Trump said, again getting the body of water wrong, “to the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and you say, ‘Why are you fixing it up?’ Because you can understand dirt, maybe, better than I can, but I don’t allow it.”
“This is one of the worst reporters,” Trump grumbled, turning to some of those working on the project.
“She’s with ABC fake news and she’s a horror show. She’s saying, ‘Why would you bother fixing this up?’ Why would I bother taking 11 or 12 truckloads of filth out of the water in front of the Lincoln monument,” Trump complained, mistating that site as well. “That’s what made our country great. Beauty made our country. People made our country great. A question like that is a disgrace to our country.”
Minutes later, as he was turning away from the group of reporters to get back in the presidential limousine, Trump gestured in Scott’s direction. He shook his head, smirked, and made a comment that the microphones didn’t pick up.
At the time, Trump was flanked by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, with border czar Tom Homan further off to the side.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of the Interior about what Trump said, in light of online speculation that he appeared to use the word “b---h” in reference to Scott.
Scott hasn’t commented publicly on Trump’s outburst, only recapping in a post on X what her question was and how the president responded to it.
Hours earlier, Trump had told her in a phone call that U.S. retaliatory strikes against Iranian targets are just a “love tap.”
She and Trump have engaged on several occasions over the years, with Trump often coming off poorly.
At the July 2024 meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists, Trump told Scott that Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black.”
Last December, Trump called Scott a “terrible” reporter for pressing him about U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats in the Carribbean.
Trump, of course, has a habit of acting out toward female reporters.
New York Times reporter Katie Rogers, who co-wrote a report on his lighter second-term schedule, was “ugly,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that made no mention of the male co-author. And when Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey asked about the release of Jeffrey Epstein files last November, Trump shouted, “Quiet, piggy!”
