April 21, 2018

Trump Began His Morning By Attacking a Times Reporter on Twitter

But Pulitzer winner Maggie Haberman didn’t back down.

Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx via AP

While several former presidents were en route to attend the funeral service of former first lady Barbara Bush on Saturday morning, President Donald Trump was tweeting insults at reporters and heading to the golf course.

Trump took to Twitter to bash the New York Times after the newspaper reported on Friday that his attorney Michael Cohen, whose office, hotel room, and home were recently raided as part of an investigation into his business dealings, might cooperate with federal prosecutors. The president referred to Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who recently won a Pulitzer for her reporting on the Trump team, as “a Crooked H flunkie who I don’t speak to,” though he has likely given more interviews to her than to any other journalist. He also described former aide Sam Nunberg, who told the Times that Cohen “holds leverage over Trump” now, as “a drunk/drugged up loser.”

Haberman responded to the tweets:

Meanwhile, four of the five living former presidents, including Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George Bush, were expected to join about 1,500 other guests in Houston to pay their respects at the funeral service for Barbara Bush, who died on Tuesday at the age of 92. First lady Melania Trump is also expected to be in attendance. On Friday, the White House said Trump would not join the event because he didn’t want his heightened security presence to cause “disruptions” to the service. Haberman tweeted that Trump would not be in attendance because the Bush family did not want him there.

Reporters in the president’s motorcade pool said Trump was heading to the golf course around 8 a.m. He tweeted that his “thoughts and prayers are with the entire Bush family” and later returned to Mar-a-Lago to watch the service on television.

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FACT:

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Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2020 demands.

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