President Trump Called a Black Reporter "Second-Rate" for Asking About Chicago

For as long as he's been in public life, President Trump has had a testy relationship with the press. He once called journalists the "enemy of the people," and it seems like he still doesn't like it when reporters push back on his statements or follow up when they're confused about something.

During a recent White House press availability, Trump had a particularly testy interaction with one reporter who questioned his plans for Chicago. For weeks, the president has been suggesting that he might go to all-out war with the city, bringing in federal troops to fight crime against the wishes of the mayor and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. Here's what we know about what he was asked and why he delivered such a testy response.

The testy moment came after NBC's Yamiche Alcindor asked the president about a recent post on Truth Social in which he seemed to compare himself to Robert Duvall's character from the 1979 film Apocalypse Now. The post was captioned, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning," and Alcindor asked Trump if he planned to "go to war" with the city of Chicago, as his post hinted at.

“That’s fake news,” he said before leaving the White House to head to the U.S. Open. When Alcindor attempted to follow up, Trump interrupted and talked over her.

"Be quiet, listen! You don’t listen! You never listen,” he said. “That’s why you’re second-rate. We’re not going to war. We’re gonna clean up our cities … Clean them up, so they don’t kill five people every weekend. That’s not war, that’s common sense.”

Trump's decision to scold Alcindor received fairly widespread condemnation online. Alcindor is a veteran journalist who has worked for a wide range of outlets, including PBS and The New York Times, and some were quick to point out that Trump seems to take a particular tack when he's talking to women and people of color.

"Trump telling a female reporter to 'be quiet' and calling her 'second-rate' isn’t just rude; it’s part of a consistent pattern of disrespect toward women in the media. He’s previously labeled female reporters 'obnoxious' and told them to 'keep your voice down,'" one person wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

It's worth noting, too, that Alcindor's questions were about things that Trump had written and said himself about Chicago.

It's unclear why he decided to contradict his recent statements about Chicago, but many took note of what they said was a belittling tone he took with Alcindor, and said it was part of a broader pattern of criticism toward female and minority reporters specifically.

Trump has been arguing for some time that these federal deployments are necessary because of crime in the cities he's targeting.

It's worth noting, though, that Trump has specifically targeted cities in blue states, even though there are cities in some red states that have crime problems that are worse than what's happening in Chicago.