It Will Not Surprise You to Learn That Donald Trump Was Verbally Abusive to Female Heads of State

While the past month has shown us the myriad ways in which Donald Trump is racist, let’s not forget that our contemptible president is also a raving misogynist. This is not news: we’ve known about Trump’s rampant hate of women from his days bullying Rosie O’Donnell, to his harassment of the women in his beauty pageants, to his sexist and gross campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2016. And let’s not forget the double-digit accusations of sexual misconduct, rape, and sexual assault.

So it’s no surprise that Trump’s malignant misogyny extends to his treatment of women leaders. A new report by reporter Carl Bernstein details hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign leaders which Trump was woefully unprepared for. And following Trump’s well-known pattern, he oscillated between praising and sucking up to dictators like Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, while hurling verbal abuse at America’s allies.

Trump saved his bullying and vitriol for female world leaders, like German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former UK Prime Minister Theresa May. Bernstein wrote:

“But his most vicious attacks, said the sources, were aimed at women heads of state. In conversations with both May and Merkel, the President demeaned and denigrated them in diatribes described as “near-sadistic” by one of the sources and confirmed by others. “Some of the things he said to Angela Merkel are just unbelievable: he called her ‘stupid,’ and accused her of being in the pocket of the Russians … He’s toughest [in the phone calls] with those he looks at as weaklings and weakest with the ones he ought to be tough with.”

German officials described Trump’s calls with Merkel as “very aggressive”, so much so that they were kept quiet by Merkel’s staff. Trump’s words were so abusive that his phone calls were only heard by a limited group: “It’s just a small circle of people who are involved and the reason, the main reason, is that they are indeed problematic.”

That Trump would call Angela Merkel, who is the de facto leader of the free world and holds a doctorate in quantum chemistry “stupid,” would be laughable if it weren’t so depressing. But it is textbook Trump to accuse his enemies of the exact behavior he himself is engaged in. Sources say that Merkel remained cool under pressure, and that “the Chancellor indeed stayed calm, and that’s what she does on the phone.”

But Merkel wasn’t the only recipient of Trump’s vitriol. Former UK Prime Minister Theresa May was subject to “humiliating and bullying” words from Trump, who called her “a fool” and “spineless” regarding issues such as Brexit and NATO. According to an unnamed source, “He’d get agitated about something with Theresa May, then he’d get nasty with her on the phone call … It’s the same interaction in every setting — coronavirus or Brexit — with just no filter applied.”

Unlike Merkel, May was said to be “flustered and nervous” in her conversations with Trump, as a source added, “He clearly intimidated her and meant to.”

What a shameful, disgusting excuse for a “leader” he is. Who knows how many years it will take to undo the damage Trump has done to our country and our international reputation.

(via CNN, image: (image: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

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