Former President Donald Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt criticized CBS News moderator Margaret Brennan during an interview with the Daily Caller, calling her ‘stupid’ and ‘so bad.’ The remarks were made after Trump discussed his settlement with CBS’s parent company, Paramount, which he accused of election interference. Leavitt supported Trump’s assessment, asserting that Brennan’s intelligence was questionable. The criticism comes in the wake of a recent tense exchange between Brennan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio over Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
During the Daily Caller interview, Trump took a victory lap over his settlement with CBS’s parent company, Paramount, which he attributed to the network’s alleged election interference for its handling of a ’60 Minutes’ interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. He then shifted focus to speculating about the future of Norah O’Donnell, who left ‘CBS Evening News’ earlier this year but remains at the network. Trump suggested that paying O’Donnell $12 million annually would not keep her at the network for long, implying she might leave soon.
Trump then invoked Brennan, stating, ‘The woman on the ‘Face the Nation’ is so bad.’ He turned to Leavitt, who was present during the interview, and asked, ‘What do you think of her?’ Leavitt responded by stating, ‘She’s stupid. You can put that on the record.’ Trump added, ‘She’s nasty,’ reinforcing his criticism of Brennan. The criticism follows a contentious exchange between Brennan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio over Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a recent interview.
Rubio had a fiery exchange with Brennan over Trump’s upcoming meeting with Zelenskyy and other European leaders following his Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Brennan suggested there were concerns from European leaders that Zelenskyy might be bullied into signing something away, prompting Rubio to interject, ‘That is not true,’ as the two spoke over each other. Rubio criticized the media narrative as ‘stupid,’ emphasizing the network’s biased reporting. The exchange highlighted the ongoing tensions between Trump’s administration and media outlets, particularly CBS News, which has been a frequent target of the former president’s public criticisms.