Donald Trump has launched a fresh attack on CBS News senior correspondent Norah O'Donnell, calling her “terrible” and claiming she could be replaced by “any woman off the street.” The outburst follows a tense 60 Minutes interview in which O'Donnell questioned the president about an alleged manifesto written by the suspect in a shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
During the interview, O'Donnell quoted from the manifesto, which included accusations of sex crimes against an unnamed person. Trump responded angrily, saying, “I'm not a rapist. I didn't rape anybody,” and later called O'Donnell “a disgrace” for reading “crap from some sick person.”
In a subsequent interview with the Salem News Channel, Trump continued to berate O'Donnell, saying, “She's a regular person that gets paid a lot of money. She's no different. I could get any woman off the street, practically, and they would do just as good of a job as her. There's nothing special.”
O'Donnell, a multiple Emmy Award-winning journalist with nearly 30 years of experience, defended her questioning, stating that it was “certainly newsworthy” and that “these are important questions about what happened and why it happened.”
Trump has a history of attacking women reporters who ask unwelcome questions, having previously called them “stupid,” “incapable,” and even “piggy.” The suspect in the shooting, Cole Thomas Allen, faces multiple charges including attempted assassination of the president and has yet to enter a plea.
