“You’re a Loud Person, Very Loud”: Trump Berates Female Reporter While Dodging Questions on $10 Billion Lawsuit Against His Own Agencies

Trump loves to fire off insults at women reporters who ask questions he doesn’t want to answer, and Friday’s Oval Office exchange proved he’s still at it.

ABC News reporter Karen Travers tried to ask a simple question about Trump’s new $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and the Treasury Department. These are agencies that work under his own administration, which already makes the lawsuit awkward. Naturally, Trump did not want to talk about that.

So instead of responding, he went after the messenger.

“You’re a very loud person,” Trump snapped at Travers, before calling ABC News “fake news” and moving on. The question vanished. The lawsuit stayed unexplained. The insults, however, were loud and clear.

This reaction did not come out of nowhere. Trump has a long record of responding this way when confronted with uncomfortable facts. When he lacks a clean explanation, he often turns to personal attacks, especially when the person asking the question is a woman.

The lawsuit at the center of the confrontation raises serious issues that deserved a direct response. Trump claims that the leak of his tax records caused major harm to his business and personal reputation. He is seeking at least $10 billion in damages, arguing that the government failed to protect his private financial information.

However, much of this information has already been public for years. In 2020, the New York Times reported that Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and paid no income taxes for many years before that. Trump dismissed the report at the time, calling it fake, even though later developments confirmed that his tax records were indeed leaked by an IRS contractor.

That contractor, Charles Littlejohn, pleaded guilty in 2023 and was sentenced to five years in prison. The facts surrounding the leak are not disputed. What remains unclear is why Trump believes suing his own administration is the right response, or how he expects the public to accept claims of unfair treatment while he remains in control of the very agencies he is suing.

Over the years, Trump has used harsh language toward women in the press, calling them names and questioning their professionalism in ways he rarely applies to male journalists. The White House insists this has nothing to do with gender, but the pattern is difficult to ignore.

Officials defending Trump argue that he is simply blunt and honest, and that voters appreciate his lack of restraint. But honesty requires answers, not insults. Transparency means facing questions directly, not shutting them down with sarcasm and personal attacks.

The timing of the outburst also matters. The lawsuit was filed just the night before the event, making it one of the most important issues facing the administration at that moment.

Former Republican Congressman Denver Riggleman called the lawsuit “theft and corruption. Immoral, sick and anti-America,” highlighting the danger of a president using his power to target government institutions for personal grievances.

Featured image via X screengrab