President Donald Trump on Thursday attacked a journalist for asking a basic question during a Thanksgiving media availability after he spoke to U.S. service members, part of a recent trend of insults he’s hurled at the women who cover him.

“Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person?” he asked the reporter during a tense exchange about the suspect in Wednesday’s attack on two National Guard members in Washington, D.C.

Trump during the event announced that one of the victims, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom, had died and railed against the immigration policies of President Joe Biden as the suspect, who had worked with the CIA in Afghanistan, was allowed into the United States as part of a resettlement program in 2021.

“He was vetted and the vetting came up clean,” the reporter pointed out.

“He went cuckoo,” Trump replied. “I mean, he went nuts, and that happens too. It happens too often with these people.”

But Trump insisted that Afghan migrants were allowed in with no screening, and held up a photo of a crowded plane of asylum-seekers:

US President Donald Trump shows a printed photo during a call with service members from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, on November 27, 2025, during the Thanksgiving holiday. US President Donald Trump said Thursday that Sarah Beckstrom, one of the two National Guard troops shot a day earlier near the White House, had died, while the other soldier was "fighting for his life." (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty Images)

JIM WATSON via Getty Images

“There was no vetting or anything, they came in unvetted,” he said.

“Actually, your DOJ IG just reported this year that there was thorough vetting by DHS and by the FBI of these Afghans who were brought into the U.S.,” she persisted. “So why do you blame the Biden administration?”

Trump did not like the question at all.

“Because they let ’em in,” he fired back. “Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? Because they came into on a plane along with thousands of other people that shouldn’t be here, and you’re just asking questions because you’re a stupid person.”

Trump said “it’s almost impossible” to remove the people who came in via this program.

He called Katie Rogers of the New York Times “ugly” after she co-bylined a report on his lighter schedule as he ages. He chastised ABC’s Mary Bruce for asking what he called “a horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question” about having Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in the Oval Office.

And when Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey asked about the Jeffrey Epstein files, he fired back: “Quiet, piggy!”

His staff has followed his lead, telling New Yorker writer Jane Mayer to “respectfully, shut the fuck up” when she questioned the deployment of National Guard troops to Washington after the attack.

Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist who is also the president’s niece, said those attacks are telling.