President Donald Trump says, “Quiet, piggy,” in response to a female reporter’s question about Jeffrey Epstein aboard Air Force One on Nov. 14.

Last month, when pressed by a Bloomberg News reporter about the release of emails written by Jeffrey Epstein that mentioned him, President Donald Trump lashed out. 

“Quiet, piggy,” Trump said, cutting off the veteran journalist, Catherine Lucey, who was traveling with the White House press pool aboard Air Force One.  

At first glance, this crude insult didn’t measure up to the onslaught of anti-media actions Trump’s administration has unleashed in the year since the 2024 election.

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It wasn’t eliminating money for public broadcasting or shutting down the Voice of America or restricting White House access to the Associated Press for defying his dictum to rename the Gulf of Mexico or squeezing millions in tribute payments from ABC and CBS over baseless defamation claims or getting late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel suspended for snarky comments about a slain right-wing activist.

It wasn’t threatening media owners with regulatory reprisals or forcing editorial management changes in an embarrassing number of news organizations targeted for ideological discipline (or, in the case of the BBC, threatening astronomical litigation over a questionable video edit) or tightening the boundaries of Pentagon coverage so that news about the world’s most powerful military........

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