The US President has a bleak track record of sexist outbursts against women, but what really drives him to go as far as calling a reporter a ‘piggy’? Here, experts share chilling details about Donald Trump’s ‘calculated’ yet child-like psyche
Donald Trump‘s track record of spewing vile comments about women is no secret, but this week he stooped to new lows when he called a journalist a “piggy” after she probed him about the Epstein files.
Taking questions on Air Force One en-route to Washington, the US President brutally snapped at reporter Jennifer Jacobs – in a now-viral clip that has left many repulsed. Simply doing her job before the insult was slung, Jacobs had quizzed Trump about his name being mentioned hundreds of times in emails sent by billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein – part of a 22,000-document trove unveiled by Congress last week.
Trump veered forward, pointed his finger at the senior CBS White House reporter and shouted: “Quiet! Quiet, piggy.” But while it may seem like Trump’s temper simply got the better of him in the heat of the moment, experts say his behaviour is far more calculated – and shows disturbing pattern deep in his psychological make-up.
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Criminologist and psychologist Alex Iszatt told The Mirror that the President’s billionaire background acts as a hotbed for misogny and elitism, which all stems from the desperate need for power and dominance. She explained: “Honestly, I think Donald Trump is fairly typical of his class and generation, having grown up in a world where misogyny was normal and women were expected to be seen and not heard.
“I don’t think he has narcissistic personality disorder, though he definitely shows grandiose and narcissistic traits, and his attitude towards women comes straight from that old-school hierarchy. He not only grew up in an elite bubble that enabled this mindset, he also thrived in environments that rewarded aggression and spectacle, where bulldozing and humiliating opponents was seen as an asset rather than a liability.”
On Trump’s attitue towards women, the expert added: “It’s clear he sees women very simply, as either trophies or tools. Trophies are the women who make him look good, such as his mother, who he called a ‘perfect housewife,’ his daughter, who he has publicly sexualised, and wives who behave, and they are put on a pedestal for their appearance and outward behaviour rather than for insight or intellect, but only as long as they stay loyal and reflect well on him.
“Tools are the women he uses or humiliates, and the moment a Trophy steps out of line she is moved into this category, which includes ex-wives, female journalists, politicians, or anyone who challenges him, and if a woman isn’t useful he insults her, using names designed to put her back in her place, often playing on a woman’s greatest insecurities.”
Meanwhile, body language and communications expert Judi James believes that as someone who is image-obsessed, that’s always his first choice of attack. “His insults tend to be visually-prompted. His favourite, constantly-employed compliment word is ‘beautiful’ and he uses it to praise things like a deal or a bill as much as the people he is meeting,” she told The Mirror.
“It suggests a trait of predominately visual stimulation, which might also account for his constant boasting about his lavish redecoration of the White House. If he sees ‘beautiful’ as the highest praise it’s probably no surprise he will go for a visual term to insult someone, too.”
Experts also point out that the US leader has made degrading and sexualising women part of his brand ever since his days as a reality TV star, from bragging about aggressively groping women to belittling his political opponents with sex jokes. On a 2013 episode of Celebrity Apprentice, Trump told a female contestant: “It must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees.”
Meanwhile, he once said of Hilary Clinton: “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America #MakeAmericaGreatAgain.” And in a 1991 interview with Esquire Magazine, he said: “It doesn’t really matter what (the media) write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”
Trump has also joked about “dating” his own daughter Ivanka and, as Iszatt notes, has a troubling pattern of sexualising her appearance and body. He also regularly boasts about liking “beautiful women”. Trump famously called Princess Kate ‘beautiful’ multiple times on his recent State visit to the UK, an unprecedented move for a President meeting the future queen.
On the other end of the scale, the President has called women “fat” and “ugly” on multiple occasions. Louise Sunshine, who worked for Trump from 1973-1985, told the Washington Post that Trump kept a ‘fat picture’ of her in his desk drawer, that he would take out when she did something he didn’t like. She said it was “a reminder that I wasn’t perfect” and added that she still remembers it today: “When I gain weight, I think of that picture.” Trump denied the claim.
Analysing the moment Trump called a journalist a “piggy,” Iszatt said: “His outbursts aren’t a loss of control, they are exactly what you would expect from someone who sees life as a constant battle for dominance, and words are weapons in that battle. Watching The Apprentice you can see him using these techniques to become both entertainment and a brand, and it has spread into his politics in the same way, where refusing to be ‘politically correct’ isn’t accidental, and every insult signals to his supporters that he is fighting for them and not bending to norms, which his base interprets as authenticity and strength.”
She continued: “Nature and nurture are both at play, and his traits fit a personality that is egocentric, low in empathy, and emotionally unstable, with mean and childish reactions that have been reinforced for decades, because he has never needed to see the world from anyone else’s perspective, and humiliation is a tool he uses like a playground bully to get his own way. I don’t think he is mentally ill, he is cunning, and breaking norms isn’t a loss of control, it is part of his strategy.”
Meanwhile, James added that far from being a sign of power, Trump’s latest outburst is, in fact, a sign that he’s on a losing streak. “People that accrue power, status and or maturity normally learn to curb the use of personal insults as it is seen as a sign of immaturity or even a lack of self-control,” she said.
“The personal insult would be seen as a sign that someone is losing a debate, not winning it, only one step up from sticking your tongue out and blowing a raspberry. The childishness of a personal insult comes with the idea that your opponent will be so hurt, wounded or embarrassed by it that they will step down from the fight. But when it is used by an adult it’s often their own image that takes the dent.”