Trump Asks The Independent Reporter If He Is ‘Ill’ at Briefing, as Vance Calls Him an ‘Imbecile’

US President Donald Trump clashed with The Independent journalist Andrew Feinberg at a press conference in the Oval Office. The reporter was part of the rotating media pool that attends public White House events. In a piece about the row with the president, Feinberg said that as a print reporter he typically attends events involving the president about once a month, then shares material with colleagues and writes a short report.

This time, he was only meant to put a question to Trump. The correspondent had a list agreed with colleagues, but decided to improvise and ask about a hotline the White House plans to launch to reward whistleblowers with bonuses of up to $30,000 for exposing fraud.

“For doing my job, I became a target for Trump and his team. Before long, Trump was lecturing me and laying into me, and his rapid-response operation at the White House called me a ‘mongoloid moron’ — an insult directed at people with developmental disabilities, a phrase I would never use — and the vice-president, on his official government account, called me an ‘imbecile’,” Feinberg said.

Trump’s press conference began quite routinely, he explained. White House officials were to present an award to YouTube blogger Nick Shirley, whose viral videos spurred the administration’s raids on nurseries and home healthcare businesses in Minnesota that are run by or owned by Americans of Somali descent. For their part, Trump, Vance and even Shirley behaved as though the idea of rewarding whistleblowers was new and unique to this administration: the YouTuber claimed that “there has never been an incentive for anyone to expose fraud” in the country’s entire history.

“Because I have spent most of my professional life covering the federal government, I know that a mechanism for rewarding whistleblowers is already enshrined in law, and I knew that Shirley — and the rest — were deeply mistaken about this. As far back as 1883, a law known as the False Claims Act has allowed whistleblowers to file lawsuits on behalf of the federal government to recover money fraudulently taken from federal programmes. That law pays people more than Trump was offering in his programme,” he explained.

The journalist asked Trump why anyone would use the administration’s “hotline” if they could get far more money by using the established procedure that has existed since the days of Abraham Lincoln. Trump replied: “Because it’s a lot of money.” The president then asked Feinberg who he was, even though, the journalist says, he had been in his press pool many times before, including aboard Air Force One. The reporter introduced himself and said he worked for The Independent. He tried to ask the president other questions that had been prepared in advance.

Feinberg claims that as Trump was choosing which journalists to call on, he pointed in his direction several times, so it seemed to him that he was being given the floor. Feinberg began to ask a question, but the president was likely referring to an Agence France-Presse journalist standing directly behind him.

Trump told him “quieter” several times and added: “What’s wrong with you? Are you a sick person? I think something is wrong with you.” He also said Feinberg should be more careful.

• This is not the only instance of the American president lashing out at a journalist. For example, in August Trump argued with a CNN journalist after a question about his aide. He told her to “shut up”.