Donald Trump is out of control

At 1:51 this afternoon, the president of the United States grew increasingly frantic for the entire world to see on live TV. Seated in the Oval Office, with gold lame medallions glued on the walls behind him and a heroic teenage lifeguard and the child he saved both seated less than two feet away, Donald Trump launched into an unprovoked attack on a CNN reporter.

Trump: “Quiet. Quiet. Quiet. You’re very disrespectful in front of this young man, okay? Don’t you find her disrespectful?” (He turned to the ten-year-old. The boy did not respond.) “He understands. Quiet. Who are you with?”

CNN Reporter Holmes: “I’m with CNN.”

Trump: “Fake news. You’re fake news. You’re a loud, boisterous person. You’re faking news. Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet. You’re a fake reporter, and you report fake news.”

All Holmes wanted to know was whether Kim Jong Un had asked him to scale back South Korean military exercises. For that, the President of the United States told her to be quiet, called her fake, and then turned to a ten-year-old boy sitting next to him in the Oval Office and tried to recruit him into the attack. The child said nothing. Because what do you say when the most powerful man in the world points at a woman doing her job and asks you, a grade schooler, to help him condemn her?

For her part, Holmes held her ground. After he finished his tirade, she calmly restated the question: “I was trying to find out if you had been talking to Kim Jong Un, if he had asked you to scale back on those military exercises.”

His response came quickly. Once again opting to attack her instead of providing any real answer, “Be quiet,” he said one more time, before another journalist jumped in with a new question for the president.

The question that Holmes had asked mattered, and he knew it. Because either Kim Jong Un did ask him to scale back allied military exercises, which means the President of the United States reduced the military readiness of an ally at the request of a dictator for possible nefarious reasons. Or Kim did not ask, and Trump did it on his own, abandoning our ally for no strategic reason while repeatedly praising the dictator who is threatening that ally. Either answer is devastating.

Over those 34 minutes, what played out in that room told a much larger story than one exchange with a single reporter. Donald Trump turned a celebration of courage, selflessness, and a child’s life saved into something that should never happen anywhere close to the Oval Office. What we all witnessed was yet another public viewing of his presidency collapsing.

The honoree today was Ryder Williams, a 16-year-old lifeguard from Santa Cruz, California, who pulled ten-year-old Nathaniel Rai from dangerous surf last month. The rescue went viral because of just how violent the waves were and how much bravery Ryder showed in saving him. When a reporter asked Ryder what message he had for his generation, he answered with clarity well beyond his years: “I hope that everybody can take away from this and try to help more people. Try to look out for everybody around you. And just try to help everybody out as much as you can.”

When Trump had the opportunity to express that same kind of message, he chose very different words. “He’s a real hero. You know, when you see that, I don’t know if I’d do it. I wouldn’t probably.” Then, speaking directly to the ten-year-old boy who had nearly drowned, Trump added, “You’re lucky I wasn’t on the service that day.”

He laughed, and the room laughed as the President of the United States told the child who nearly died that he probably would not have saved him.

Then Trump turned to Ryder’s mother, Shannon Williams, and said: “You did a good job. It’s good genetics. When you look at him, you can see really good.”

Once Trump was satisfied with the fanfare surrounding the event, he opened the room to questions from reporters. And his attack on Holmes was only the beginning.

A reporter asked about Senator Jon Ossoff’s comments regarding Trump’s aide Natalie Harp, who is often referred to as his “human printer,” “diaper nurse,” “binky,” or “comfort blanket.” Ossoff had said at a rally the day before that Trump “doesn’t want to do the job” and would rather “build his ballroom and travel with Natalie.”

Trump didn’t offer much of a response beyond calling Ossoff a “Pee-wee Herman lookalike,” admitting that he would “much rather do other things,” and then launching right into a lengthy defense of the White House ballroom. He brought up how President Xi of China is coming on September 24 for a dinner of 2,000 people and that Xi has his own ballroom. He called the National Trust for Historic Preservation “very disloyal to our country” for filing the lawsuit to stop the construction.

He spent more time defending his ballroom than he spent talking about Iran, North Korea, and the safety of the sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln combined.

A reporter then asked about his phone interview from that morning, where he told Fox News he would “bomb the shit out of” Oman, if it interfered with U.S. efforts in the Strait of Hormuz. The reporter asked whether he was out of patience with Oman.”No, I don’t think they behaved very well, but we’d handle them very easily just like we do other things.” He casually threatened yet another ally.

When another reporter asked how Trump would respond to critics who say he is prioritizing the interests of adversaries in North Korea over longtime partners by scaling back joint military exercises with South Korea, he didn’t hold back. He told the room that he had called South Korea’s president and asked him to help with the Iran war. South Korea declined. That is the simple truth about why Trump is now punishing them. He added, “We have 39,000 soldiers over there guarding you from Kim Jong-un, your next door neighbor, and you’re not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran.”

He also praised Kim Jong Un: “Kim Jong-un has always treated me with great respect. I understand him. He understands me.” He said Kim did not like Biden, Obama, or anybody, “but I get along with him very well.”

Immediately after the Holmes exchange, a different reporter asked if there is enough food on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Trump dismissed the report on the troubles facing the ship as “a CNN fake report.” He proved this by recounting a conversation he supposedly had with an unnamed retired admiral he met “at a big group” over the weekend who told him the ship is “beautifully maintained and beautifully taken care of.” Families have been publicly pleading about deteriorating conditions, mental health crises, and food shortages. Democratic lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee responded by posting a photograph of an actual dinner served aboard: diced carrots and a hamburger patty as their own evidence of what is really happening aboard that ship.

Near the end, as the room grew more chaotic and reporters shouted over one another, Trump turned to the 16-year-old hero lifeguard, patted him on the leg and said: “Don’t we find them nice, huh? Nice people, right? Look at him. You say what? He’s saying where do people like this come from? Your son is saying where do people like this come from?” It was a very odd moment where he tried to narrate what the teen was supposedly thinking as he used him one final time as a weapon against the press.

And then, just as abruptly as it started, the whole thing was over. The press was ushered out, and the Trump administration immediately went on damage control duty. The White House Rapid Response account posted that CNN reporter, Kristen Holmes is “a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession.” It called the White House press corps “scumbags” and “the lowest of the low.” And then, roughly 30 minutes later, a second post was made, this time involving even more children: “Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive. It’s quite troubling.” That is the official White House of the United States going after a journalist’s children because she asked the President whether a dictator influenced his military decisions. White House communications director Steven Cheung called Senator Ossoff “Jon Jackoff” and “the biggest cuck loser in politics.” I don’t even have the words in this moment to express how truly diabolical it is that an official United States government account would use a vulgar and sexually degrading insult against a sitting United States senator.

This is Trump’s go-to play when he feels cornered and when he feels power slipping through his fingers. He weaponizes his anger against women who ask the questions he doesn’t want to answer. He called Kaitlan Collins: “stupid and nasty.” Catherine Lucey of Bloomberg was told, “quiet, piggy.” Nancy Cordes of CBS was asked, “Are you stupid?” Rachel Scott of ABC was told she was “obnoxious,” a “terrible reporter.” Mary Bruce of ABC was degraded and called “terrible” for asking the Saudi crown prince about the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. It is more often than not women, and it is always when they ask the question he does not want to answer.

We have seen this before. In the final year of Richard Nixon’s presidency, as Watergate closed in around him, his hostility toward the press grew even more toxic, and he made it personal. He was erratic and impulsive. He kept an enemies list and ordered surveillance of reporters. He raged privately and publicly at the journalists who were pulling the threads that would eventually unravel his presidency. His staff began working around him, managing his outbursts, limiting his exposure, and questioning whether he was still fit to lead. The anger came from a position of paranoia. He could feel the ground giving way beneath him, and he had no idea how to stop it. And the more cornered he became, the more dangerous he became, not just to the press, but to the country. Anger in a president that keeps escalating like this never ends well. Nixon proved that, but what we are watching now is worse, because Nixon, for all his corruption and cruelty, at least understood that the presidency carried obligations he could not openly abandon. Trump does not even pretend to care.

Maybe today’s meltdown went deeper than questions in the Oval Office. Maybe it had more to do with the Supreme Court’s decision to decline, for the second time, to hear his appeal of the E. Jean Carroll verdict. His own justices refused him, and Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, noted that the verdict “As a result, the jury’s unanimous verdict that Donald Trump sexually assaulted and then defamed E. Jean Carroll is now final and cannot be challenged in any court.” He did not mention it today in his office, but you could feel it in the air, especially when he snarled “be quiet” at a woman asking a question he did not want to answer.

What he did today was not just embarrassing, it was dangerous. A president this reactive, and incapable of controlling himself in a room with a teenager and a ten-year-old, is a national security threat. Our adversaries are watching. Putin, Xi, and Kim are watching. And they are not impressed by his “great respect” relationships. They are calculating how easy he is to manipulate. He was baited by a single follow-up question from a reporter and had a meltdown. That is the most dangerous kind of weakness a president can have.

As I watched him speak on camera, I thought about what it teaches every kid who saw it. About power and women and about what happens in this country when you ask a question the powerful do not want anyone else to know the answers to. I thought about my own daughters and grandchildren I might have one day. I thought about every parent who watched that moment and felt the same thing I did. That sinking feeling that this is the country we are handing them. I do not want to live in a country, or raise children, or have grandchildren in a country where the president of the United States treats anybody like that, and I refuse to accept that this is what we have become.

I made a promise when I started writing these posts. Every time this administration attacked the press, the First Amendment, or the right of the American people to speak truth to power, I would call it out by name. Today they took it to a new level. And I am calling it out. What happened in that room was an attack on every one of us who has ever written about what is really happening inside the United States, shared a post, called a representative, or showed up to a protest. They want us to feel it. They want us to hesitate the next time we go to speak. Our answer has to be that we do not hesitate. We say it louder.

This is the moment to put our money where our voices are. Every time this administration attacks the First Amendment, we respond by funding the people defending it. That is the most direct form of resistance available to us right now. Protecting the media that is still standing is how the truth stays alive when every other system is being captured. That includes legacy media and independent media, because they both have a place in the battles ahead. Kristen Holmes asked a legitimate question today on behalf of every American who deserves to know whether a dictator is influencing our military decisions. And for that, the President of the United States told her to be quiet, and his government went after her children. So tonight, let’s go to her social media and thank her for her bravery and show her she is not alone. We can do the same for CNN. Let’s share that we want more of that. We want journalists asking the hard questions no matter how the president feels about having to answer them.

So tonight I’m asking you to think beyond just my voice. Think about every writer, every journalist, every podcaster, every independent outlet that you turn to when you need the truth, and you need to trust what you’re reading. The ones who are still standing with the truth even when doing so comes at great cost. Because what this administration is trying to build requires our silence. And the most powerful thing we can do right now is make sure the people refusing to be silent can keep going. Every paid subscription is a vote against Trump trying to take away our First Amendment rights.

And here is the thing Trump does not want us to see. He is making these threats and attacks because he is scared. His own Supreme Court, including justices he appointed, just told him for the second time that the E. Jean Carroll verdict stands. He is, for the rest of recorded history, a man found liable for sexual abuse by a unanimous jury, upheld by every court that reviewed it, including his own. No amount of screaming at reporters will erase it.

The walls are closing in, and the midterms are right around the corner. He can feel it, and men like him do not get quieter when they lose control. They get louder, and they get more reckless. Nixon got louder too, and we know how that ended. We should expect the same escalation here, and we should prepare for it. But we should also see it for what it is. The flailing of a man who knows the ground is shifting beneath him. Regimes on the right side of history do not come for our words when they feel secure. They come for our words because they know what happens when enough of us keep using them.

And the proof that this country is still worth fighting for was sitting right across from him today. A 16-year-old boy shared a message for his generation: “Try to look out for everybody around you. And just try to help everybody out as much as you can.” He is the future of our country, and his generation is watching all of this. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: Thoughts on bringing back bumper stickers again? We could get some really good ones going.

Sources used in the writing of this post:

https://abcnews.com/US/heroic-16-year-lifeguard-saved-child-recognized-white/story?id=135707080

https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/president-trump-dismisses-reports-about-conditions-aboard-uss-lincoln-as-cnn-fake-report/5204475

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/08/17/white-house-attacks-cnn-reporter-after-trump-clash-targets-her-children/

https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/trump-attacks-cnn-kristen-holmes-north-korea-dictator-1236836707/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/natalie-harp-trump-aide-jon-ossoff-questions-rcna593003

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-bomb-oman-iran-strait-hormuz-rcna592971

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/us-iran-war-deal-expired-strait-of-hormuz/

https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/17/politics/fact-check-trump-south-korea-cost-sharing-biden

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6034334/trump-dismisses-uss-lincoln-report/

https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/17/politics/ossoff-natalie-harp-trump

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/17/trump-supreme-court-e-jean-carroll.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-declines-trump-appeal-e-jean-carroll-award-rcna592887

https://www.axios.com/2025/11/29/trump-targets-female-reporters-with-disparaging-rhetoric