‘Disgusting behavior’: Trump slammed for getting in Black reporter’s face after being challenged on $5,000 dividends
TheGrio...
ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott pressed Trump on his $5,000 election-year promise and his previous unfulfilled pledges to send Americans checks.
Donald Trump, yet again, lashed out at White House reporter Rachel Scott after she questioned the president on his promise to give Americans $5,000 “dividend” checks if Republicans win the midterm elections. Critics called out Trump for stepping into Scott’s personal space, some even accusing him of “lunging” at her.
“It’s clear that Donald Trump was being menacing and threatening towards Rachel, and it was beyond inappropriate. It was disgusting behavior,” says Reecie Colbert, a political commentator and host of Sirius XM’s “The Reecie Colbert Show.”
Scott, a senior political correspondent for ABC News, challenged Trump on why he was incentivizing voters with cash to back Republicans in the November elections—a move that is said to be likely illegal and a ploy to evade what appears to be an inevitable defeat for his party in Congress.
“The U.S. is still $40 trillon in debt. If your economic policies are working, why do you need an incentive for people to turn out to vote?” asked Scott.
Trump denied that his offer to give out $5,000 checks (which would amount to more than $1.7 trillion) was to turn out the vote, but as a “reward” for “putting up” with the policies of the Biden administration. Scott pressed further, adding, “You also offered refund checks, and that didn’t happen.”
The president attempted to cut off Scott’s question and move on to another reporter. “Not you!” said Trump, as he moved forward and leaned into Scott’s face. He added, “You’re the worst.”
Colbert praised Rachel Scott for being a “consummate professional,” telling theGrio, “She epitomizes what it’s like to be a Black woman in America who is just simply trying to do [her] job and having to deal with hostility…but still being fearless in the face of all that.” She continued, “She asked a substantive, valid question…She’s asking the questions that need to be asked, and she’s holding him accountable for his words. That’s what the press is supposed to do.”
Trump’s personal unload on Scott is nothing new. He has repeatedly insulted her and White House reporters over the years, most especially female and specifically Black female reporters. Scott alone has been called “hostile” and “obnoxious” by Trump when pressing the president on issues like his “beautification” projects around Washington, D.C., while the country is at war in Iran (which is costing the country at least $1 billion a day); and the controversial drone strike of a boat from Venezuela allegedly carrying drugs.
Colbert says Trump’s response to Scott indicated he didn’t fully “comprehend” her question. “Donald Trump is barely literate, so I think that incentive is too big of a word for him to comprehend. So he said reward, which is literally the same thing as an incentive, so I think that her sophisticated language was too much for him to handle.”
Sources who spoke to theGrio say voters shouldn’t fall for the okey-doke regardingTrump’s $5,000 offer.
“A $5,000 check that only shows up if Donald Trump and Republicans win isn’t economic policy — it’s a bribe conditioned on keeping Trump in power. If this dividend were real, he’d issue it now, not dangle it as a campaign prize,” said Jamarr Brown, a Democratic strategist and former executive director of the Texas Democratic Party. “Meanwhile, gas, groceries, utilities, and prescription prices are up under his watch, and he already broke this exact promise once.”
As Scott pointed out in her line of questioning to the president, Brown added, “The $2,000 tariff checks from 2025 never materialized. No funding plan then, no funding plan now, just a trillion-dollar IOU timed to Election Day.”
Joel Payne, a Democrat strategist who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, told theGrio, “The only thing you can trust out of Donald Trump is that he will always put the interests of wealthy elites over those of working people. His record of broken promises and straight up lies just to try to hustle a few extra votes speaks for itself.”
Colbert added, “This man is always selling wolf tickets. They have the trifecta right now. Get up off of these breaks. Somebody will Mitch McConnell into the Senate chamber and get these checks out today. They could do that if they wanted to.”