ABC News anchor Jonathan Karl is a presidential punching bag, depending on the day and even the hour. Donald Trump loves him, hates him, and loves him again.
And it’s par for the course for anyone — except MAGA-friendly organizations — covering the White House. But Karl has long discovered it’s just a cat-and-mouse game the president plays.
And it really doesn’t matter.
Trump has long been the master of mixed messaging. That’s never been more starkly evident than during the Iran war. But why does he do it? Why slam the battered members of the “enemy of the state” — especially women — and then, publicly or privately, kid around with them?
While no one is qualified to assess the inner workings of Trump’s mind, it’s clear a lot of his attacks are simply to vent; he likes to keep everyone off balance. He enjoys when reporters appear on his side or are neutral, but he can’t help lashing out when he gets legitimate questions he doesn’t like.
During a recent interview, Karl — ABC News‘ chief Washington correspondent and co-anchor of “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” — tells a story where Trump attacked him during a press conference.
“There was an incident in the Oval Office a few weeks ago… I was asking about free speech… he really went after me,” Karl told Mediaite. When the press conference ended, Karl said Trump called him over and said, “We’re okay, we’re good.” He later said when the cameras were off, “Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you, Jon.”
Karl wrote “Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America” in October, and it became an instant New York Times bestseller — even though it was only on the list for a week. The book chronicled the president’s 2024 campaign and his return to power in the White House, documenting one of the most divisive campaigns in modern history.
In a seemingly random attack, Trump posted on Truth Social a few days ago: “Third rate news anchor Jonathan Karl of ABC Fake News… wrote another book about me where his stories and reporting ‘bear no relationship to the truth.’ A waste of time — fictitious quotes. Don’t buy the book!”
In another press conference, Trump said ABC is a very unfair network and eviscerated Karl for asking whether free speech also applies to his critics. “Frankly, you’re a terrible reporter. You know it and so do I.”
Karl is not alone. When Bob Woodward, after 19 taped interviews with Trump, made the discussions public, Trump sued him for $50 million, even though he had consented to the interviews for Woodward’s book. A federal judge dismissed the suit against Woodward and Simon & Schuster last year.
In fact, when Woodward’s book “Rage” was published in 2020, it was Karl who asked Trump: “Why did you lie to the American people, and why should we trust what you have to say now?” Trump barked, “That’s a terrible question, and the phraseology. I didn’t lie.”
Among other things, Woodward had written that Trump minimized the effects of COVID so as not to cause panic — even though he thought the epidemic was far worse than he had acknowledged.
Donald Trump has a long history of constantly attacking female TV reporters. During the White House Easter Egg Roll two days ago, he unloaded on PBS White House correspondent Liz Landers as a “rotten reporter” after she questioned his claims of 2020 election fraud.
He called a female correspondent “Miss Piggy” for asking about the Epstein files. He went after CNN’s Kaitlan Collins as “nasty” and “stupid.” And he called CBS’s Nancy Cordes “stupid” and ABC’s Rachel Scott “obnoxious.” And he ripped CNN contributor Maggie Haberman — who has covered Trump for decades as a New York Times reporter — after she questioned the president for seeming to cheer for higher oil prices.
Trump’s slap-in-the-face response to Haberman, whose 2022 biography is called “Confidence Man,” was to call her “Maggot Haberman, just another sleazebag writer for The Failing New York Times, insists on writing false stories about me… I’m thinking of adding Maggot, and some of her ‘associates,’ into my Florida-based lawsuit against the Times.”
But he cooperates with her when he thinks it’s necessary. Haberman and Jonathan Swan are releasing a new book called “Regime Change,” for which Trump granted an hour-long interview in the Oval Office.
Fortunately, when I interviewed him in the White House during his first term, he didn’t attack. He acknowledged my questions and bobbed and weaved, quickly pivoting to another topic without giving me a clear answer.
Some people not in the media, or obsequious reporters, laugh it off by saying, as Ronald Reagan famously did, “There he goes again.” Or they just chuckle at his hubris. Most female reporters — myself included — find the insults thrown at women for doing their job abhorrent, overly personalized, and seemingly misogynistic.
But if he didn’t give reporters attention, would they have the name recognition to sign cable contracts and write books about him? Sales of Donald Trump-related books, by the way, have cooled significantly. Some still sell, but there are fewer breakouts than before.
For context, Trump attacked the media 100 times during the two months before the 2024 election, according to Reporters Without Borders. The group did not count social media posts.
To be fair, Trump is hardly the only president who has chastised reporters. And there are plenty of reporters with a liberal bent who are openly hostile toward the president. But with Trump, it’s no-holds-barred and consistently nasty — and that’s, sadly, the state of affairs when he doesn’t like journalists pressuring him for answers. We have grown so accustomed to his anti-media rhetoric that it barely makes news.
It’s not just women, obviously, as underscored by the case of Karl. Despite their ups and downs, Trump still takes his calls and grants him interviews.
All reporters respond differently. But Karl, who has been covering the president for years, prides himself on having a thick skin.
“For the most part, Trump doesn’t really mean it… Who cares if he insults me… I’m just doing the job.”
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