It was earlier this month that Donald Trump tried to shut a female reporter down by calling her “quiet, quiet, piggy.” The controversy refuses to die, what with the White House’s clarification, a bizarre defense from Trump’s team, and his repeated misogynistic comments since then.
It started when a female reporter questioned Trump about the Epstein Files when he was on board Air Force One earlier this month. Trump, who has actively been dodging all questions related to Epstein, shut the Bloomberg journalist down with his “piggy” comment. Trump is being slammed for his comment big time.
“Quite, quite piggy 🐽” #Trump pic.twitter.com/NEN99W0nRI
— Brunella C. (@BrunellaCapitan) November 18, 2025
Amid the “piggy” controversy, it has been revealed that Trump, too, was called “Piggy” once upon a time. USA Today, citing an archived story in New York magazine, revealed that back in 80s (1987 to be precise), Trump, then a real estate mogul, was involved in a very public feud with Ed Koch, the then mayor of New York.
Per the archived story, Trump had referred to Koch as a “m—- ” and said that the “city under Ed Koch is a disaster.” Ed Koch retorted by saying, “If Donald Trump is squealing like a stuck pig, I must have done something right,” and went on to call him “greedy, greedy, greedy” and “piggy, piggy, piggy.”
USA Today also mentioned in the report that Trump addressed the 1996 Miss Universe as “Miss Piggy” after she gained weight post her win.
Amid the never-ending controversy surrounding the comment, the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt offered a bizarre explanation for Trump’s “piggy” remark, calling him the “most transparent president in history.”
Q: What did the president mean when he called a reporter “piggy”?
LEAVITT: Look, the president is very frank & honest with everyone in this room. You’ll all seen it yourself. You’ve all experienced it yourselves. And I think it’s one of the many reasons the American people… pic.twitter.com/zgEONn3e5v
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 20, 2025
Defending Trump, Karoline Leavitt said that he is “very frank and honest with everyone in this room. She added, “You’ve all seen it yourself. You’ve experienced it yourselves. And I think it’s one of the many reasons that the American people re-elected this president because of his frankness. And he calls out fake news when he sees it. He gets frustrated with reporters when you lie about him, when you spread fake news about him and his administration.”
It wasn’t just Karoline Leavitt who defended the President’s “piggy” remark. During an interaction with the Daily Beast last week, a White House spokesperson, defending Trump, said, “This reporter behaved in an inappropriate and unprofessional way toward her colleagues on the plane. If you’re going to give it, you have to be able to take.”
The “piggy” remark wasn’t the sole distasteful comment made by Trump to a female journalist lately. He soon found himself amid another controversy when he snapped at a reporter during a press briefing last week.
“It’s not the question that I mind. It’s your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions. You start off with a man who’s highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question,” Trump snapped at a reporter asking him about the Epstein Files again.
Trump’s utter disrespect for female journalists is no brand-new information. It was only last month that he tried mansplaining to a reporter. Trump did a press briefing at the White House alongside the Australian Prime Minister. He was asked by a reporter from The Nightly Australia, “You are the most powerful man on earth. Why don’t you just enable Ukraine to finish this war tomorrow?”
Trump was trolled a great deal after he responded, “Well, if you knew anything about what you were talking about. You do? I don’t think you do, really, I don’t think you do, because it’s a little bit more complicated than that. It sounds easy. We’re in the process of trying to make a deal. If we make a deal, that’s great. If we don’t make a deal, it’ll be … a lot of people are going to be paying a big price.”
