The Oval Office erupted into fireworks Monday when a persistent reporter appeared to get under the president’s skin with a routine question, setting off another familiar display of President Donald Trump losing his cool while being pressed by a female journalist.
When asked whether he had spoken with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and if Kim had asked him to scale back U.S. military exercises with South Korea, President Donald Trump blew his top at CNN’s Kristen Holmes, telling her to be quiet and accusing her of “fake news.”
At one point, Trump abruptly turned to a teenage lifeguard being honored at the event to ask if he found her disrespectful — putting him squarely in the middle of one of his most unhinged confrontations on live TV.
Moments earlier, another reporter had asked Trump how he responded to criticism that scaling back military drills prioritized North Korea’s interests over those of long-standing U.S. partners.
Trump said the move would make the situation safer, pointing to his relationship with Kim.
“No, I’m making it much safer. You see, I am actually making it more safe. Kim Jong Un has always treated me with great respect. We met on numerous occasions — actually, two primary occasions — spoken and spent time; I understand him, he understands me. You’re doing war games — I get along with him. You know, he didn’t like Biden, he didn’t like Obama, he didn’t like anybody. But I get along with him very well. No, what I’m doing is making things safer,” Trump explained.
Holmes then followed up.
“Did he ask you to scale back on those?” she asked, referring to the president’s decision to shrink military exercises with South Korea. Instead of answering, Trump went on the attack.
“Quiet. You’re very disrespectful in front of this young man, OK? Don’t you find her disrespectful?” Trump said to teenage lifeguard Ryder Williams, whom the event honored.
As Holmes tried to continue, Trump asked, “Who are you with?”
“I’m with CNN,” Holmes replied.
“Fake news,” Trump said.
The more Holmes pressed for an answer, the more agitated Trump became.
“I just wanted to follow up on this — for your question,” she persisted.
“You’re a loud, boisterous person. You’re fake news!” Trump complained.
“I was trying to find out if you had been talking to Kim Jong Un,” Holmes added.
“Be quiet!” Trump growled.
The confrontation prompted renewed criticism of his abrasiveness toward female journalists.
Many social media users condemned Trump’s angry demeanor.
One wrote, “She got to him!!!” A second noted, “Every outburst shows how far gone he is.”
Another commenter mocked the president with the line, “Calm your hormones, Donnatella.”
Trump later used another CNN-related question to attack the network, this time over reports concerning conditions aboard the USS Lincoln.
“Yeah, that was a CNN fake report. The Lincoln has been out there for a period of time — a good period of time — but over the years, we’ve had them out there much longer. I was at a group meeting, and an admiral came up to see me over the weekend,” Trump said.
He then described the retired admiral’s account of conditions aboard ships.
“It was a big group, but he happened to be an admiral, retired. He said, ‘I’ve been on ships that are out there much longer than that, sir,’ and he knows people on the ship, and they say it’s beautifully maintained and beautifully taken care of. Other people went out and found it to be true. It was fake news reporting from CNN.”
One Trump-aligned social media account called Holmes “a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession.” The post complained that she had used an Oval Office appearance honoring a hero lifeguard to take “a cheap shot about one of President Trump’s staffers,” before adding, “These scumbags are the lowest of the low.”
CNN responded by defending Holmes.
“We stand firmly behind [@KristenhCNN] and reject these attacks in the strongest possible terms.”
A CNN spokesperson also told Mediaite, “Kristen Holmes is one of the most respected and accomplished journalists covering the White House. This afternoon, she did her job and asked the President of the United States a tough, relevant, and newsworthy question on behalf of the American people. Public officials are free to challenge reporting they disagree with, but personal attacks on journalists for asking questions are beneath the office and inconsistent with the principles of a free press.”
The confrontation was the latest of Trump’s many clashes with female reporters during his second term.
At the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner in late July, Trump singled out CNN’s Kaitlan Collins after she received an award for her reporting on his Oval Office confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“It’s a fake — she shouldn’t get the award, it was a fake,” Trump said before attacking her appearance. “She’s a young, attractive woman. She never smiles. I said, ‘Kaitlan, do you ever smile? Smile. You have a nice position, you’re at CNN fake news, you should be a happy person.’ ”
In another episode in June, Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker, “You’re either crooked, or you’re stupid” when she challenged the president to show evidence supporting his claim that elections are being rigged against him.
Trump also clashed with two female reporters aboard Air Force One in late 2025 when they pressed him about an MRI he had undergone.
That episode came days after he erupted at CBS News’ Nancy Cordes, who questioned his claim that the Biden administration failed to vet Afghan refugees properly in the aftermath of a shooting that killed two D.C. National Guard troops.
“Are you a stupid person?” Trump said.
Trump also targeted veteran New York Times reporter Katie Rogers, accusing her of being “assigned to only write bad things” about him and calling her “a third-rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out.”
Before that, he turned on Catherine Lucey, Bloomberg’s White House correspondent. When she attempted to ask about the Epstein files, the president cut her off: “Quiet, piggy.”
