Keir Starmer’s response to Donald Trump’s vile ‘piggy’ insult to feminine reporter
Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke to reporters on the plane as he left for London for the G20 summit in South Africa where he will meet with world leaders
Keir Starmer has said he will “always be respectful” to journalists after Donald Trump’s vile “piggy” insult to a female reporter.
In a thinly veiled swipe at the US President, Mr Starmer said it’s “really important to keep that principle of respect for journalists”.
Mr Trump barked “Quiet! Quiet, piggy” at Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey when she asked him a question about the Epstein files en route to Washington on Air Force One on Monday night.
Asked about the comments as he travelled to the G20 summit in South Africa, Mr Starmer told reporters: “I haven’t actually seen that footage but I’ve had it explained to me.
READ MORE: Donald Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt defends vile ‘piggy’ outburst – ‘It was respectful’
“President Trump can speak for himself so I’m not going to speak for him but my approach is that I will always be respectful to journalists whatever questions they’re putting to me.
“And I hope that I’ve demonstrated that over the times that you’ve all put questions to me. It’s really important to keep that principle of respect for journalists who are doing actually a really important job, certainly in the UK and our democracy.”
Health Secretary Wes Streeting slapped down Mr Trump’s comments earlier this week. Played a clip of the comments, the Cabinet minister told ITV’s This Morning: “It’s just not right.”
He continued: “For all the faults in British politics, I would be surprised if any leading politician in our country ever spoke to a woman in our press lobby like that. That’s not to say, by the way, that women journalists do not have a hard time.
“And we’ve seen examples over the years of everything from sexual harassment through to male politicians only giving interviews and stories to male journalists. So I’m not pretending that we’ve cracked all these issues here.
“This is a constant battle to tackle sexism and misogyny in our society. But we need to move on from that kind of language and behaviour towards women. It belongs in the history books, not on our television and news screens today.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed on Thursday that Mr Trump’s comment “piggy” was “respectful”. Speaking before Mr Starmer made his comments, she told reporters: “You are in the Oval Office almost every day asking the president questions.
“So I think the president being frank and open and honest to your faces rather than hiding behind your backs is frankly a lot more respectful than what you saw in the last administration when you had a president who lied to your face and then didn’t speak to you for weeks. And hid upstairs and didn’t take your questions.”
