SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
President Trump has long had a contentious relationship with the press, labeling it fake news, attacking reporters personally.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: If you want to do that, then you're a stupid person, and you happen to be. I mean, I know you.
Why would a stupid question like that be asked?
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you plan to use...
TRUMP: Why would I - why would I...
DETROW: His attacks on reporters who are women, though, continue to make headlines. Here is an exchange from Wednesday with CNN's Kaitlan Collins that started without her asking a question.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I see a young, beautiful woman. Never smiles. I never see a smile off her face. I see her standing there with hatred in her eyes.
DETROW: Senior political correspondent Tamara Keith covered Trump for years as an NPR White House correspondent and is a past president of the White House Correspondents' Association and joins me now. Hey, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hey.
DETROW: Needless to say, not the first time Trump has attacked Collins. This is a pattern.
KEITH: This is a pattern. He has gone after her personally and directly repeatedly. But it's not just Kaitlan Collins. It is so many reporters who cover the White House. Quite frequently, when someone asks a question that the president doesn't like, instead of pivoting or answering the question he wants to be asked, like most politicians do, he instead attacks, and those attacks can be very personal.
DETROW: And they seem to be much more personal for women reporters, especially when he starts talking about their looks and their demeanor and other things.
KEITH: Yes, he on Air Force One, during a Q&A with reporters, said quiet, piggy to a reporter who was asking about the Epstein files.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CATHERINE LUCEY: ...Files, sir, why not act - why are you acting as if...
TRUMP: Quiet. Quiet, piggy.
KEITH: A reporter recently was asking him about - another female reporter was asking him about the White House ballroom and potential cost overruns. And he again insulted this reporter, insulted their intelligence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I doubled the size of it, you dumb person.
KEITH: He does go after men sometimes. He did recently call a male reporter from The New York Times - called his reporting treasonous.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: You should write that. I actually think it's sort of treasonous, what you write, but...
KEITH: But that is the exception, not the rule.
DETROW: Going back to what happened this week, how did Kaitlan Collins respond in the moment?
KEITH: You know, she played it incredibly straight. He did say, you used to be a conservative from Alabama. She said, I'm still from Alabama. And she asked questions.
DETROW: Yeah.
KEITH: In fact, when he sort of distracted himself and weaved and started attacking her initially, he was responding to a question about the $1.8 billion antiweaponization fund that many congressional Republicans are really upset about. He attacks Collins, and then later, she asks him again and presses him on that antiweaponization font. Then on her show last night, she didn't talk about herself. She didn't make it about herself, but she did have to play that interaction because it was news.
DETROW: I want to ask you a question that I have gotten probably hundreds of times as a former White House correspondent as well, and I know you've gotten it a lot. What do you say when people say, why don't the other reporters stand up to Trump in these moments? When he attacks one of your peers personally, insults them personally, why isn't there more group pushback saying, you can't talk to another person like that?
KEITH: It's a pretty complicated answer. In part, it is the dynamics of the press corps today. In the past, the people in the room or on Air Force One with President Trump were entirely independent reporters who were picked by the White House Correspondents' Association to be there. Now, the White House picks the vast majority of the people who are in the room, and they pack that room with people who are very favorable to the president. And when he's attacking a reporter, he's trying to avoid answering something that he doesn't want to answer. And so the best thing that we as a press corps could do is to just ask that same question. Keep following up. Don't let the president get away.
DETROW: NPR's Tamara Keith, thank you so much.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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