There’s Nothing Normal About an Unrepentant Felon Found Liable for Sexually Abusing a Woman Lunging at a Female Journalist — Even if He’s President
By Edrea Davis – If a publicly known, unrepentant felon who was previously found liable for sexually abusing a woman suddenly stepped toward any woman while angrily yelling at her, most people would not stand there and pretend nothing had happened. They would react.
Someone might step between them. Someone might tell him to back up. Someone might ask the woman if she was all right. At the very least, the people standing nearby would recognize that something inappropriate and potentially threatening had just occurred.
The fact that the man in question is the president of the United States should not lower that standard.
Yet that is essentially what happened Thursday when President Donald Trump angrily shut down ABC News senior political correspondent Rachel Scott, when he wagged his finger at her, stepped toward her and leaned in as she attempted to ask a follow-up question on the Dallas airport tarmac.
Scott had questioned Trump about his proposal to give American adults $5,000 if Republicans retain control of Congress following the midterm elections. When she continued questioning him about earlier promises of tariff-rebate checks that never happened, Trump repeatedly told her, “Not you,” before telling her, “Your network and you, you’re the worst.”
Then something nearly as troubling as his aggressive behavior happened. The press conference continued. Another reporter took his turn asking the president a question as though the woman standing beside him had not just been publicly berated and physically confronted in a threatening manner.
That is where the danger of normalization begins. Because when abnormal conduct is met with normal behavior from everyone around it, abnormal conduct starts becoming normalized.
I have experienced my fair share of workplace harassment firsthand. It is intimidating, humiliating and debilitating. Back then — and, unfortunately, sometimes even now — reporting a superior could mean risking your livelihood, your career or both.
Women fought for decades to change workplace cultures where powerful men could speak to them any way they wanted, intimidate them, sexualize them, humiliate them and expect everyone else to look the other way.
It’s bad enough watching the civil rights setbacks we’re experiencing in this country related to race, religion or sexual orientation. We shouldn’t also move backward to a culture where a man can aggressively confront a woman simply doing her job while everyone around them carries on as if that behavior is normal.
And this was not some anonymous man losing his temper.
Trump was convicted in New York in 2024 on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. A separate federal civil jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.
That history makes the president’s decision to move aggressively toward a woman doing her job especially disturbing.
This is not about whether Rachel Scott is tough enough to handle Donald Trump. She is a veteran political journalist who has repeatedly questioned powerful people.
It is about standards.
If a man in an ordinary workplace behaved aggressively toward a woman, shouted her down, moved toward her in anger and attempted to intimidate her into silence, would everyone around them simply turn to him and ask the next question?
Would they first question their political leanings before coming to her defense?
Should she be expected to tolerate it because the man is powerful?
Should we excuse it because he frequently behaves that way?
Or should somebody say, “You cannot treat people like that”?
Where are the journalism organizations?
Where are the women’s organizations that spent generations fighting to make intimidation, harassment and humiliation of women unacceptable?
And where were the journalists standing next to Rachel Scott?
ABC News publicly backed Scott after the incident. But institutional support after the fact does not answer the larger question raised by what happened in that moment.
Someone should also identify the reporter who immediately followed Scott and ask him a simple question: Did you recognize that your colleague had just been verbally attacked and physically confronted?
The White House response makes matters worse.
Rather than acknowledging concerns about Trump’s conduct, the White House defended him by arguing that he calls out male and female reporters when he considers their questions biased. But whether the president likes a reporter’s question has nothing to do with whether he should aggressively move toward her while insulting her.
Journalists are not supposed to ask questions presidents enjoy. They are supposed to ask questions presidents sometimes desperately want to avoid.
Scott is hardly the first female journalist to experience Trump’s personal attacks. Recent reporting has documented repeated clashes with women in the press corps, including CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and NBC News’ Kristen Welker, while also noting that Trump has confronted male journalists as well.
But repetition cannot become justification.
“This is just Trump” cannot become America’s response whenever the president crosses another behavioral line.
That is precisely how unacceptable conduct becomes acceptable.
There was a time when women were expected to tolerate humiliation from powerful men, remain quiet and keep working because speaking up could cost them their careers.
Women fought hard to change that.
We should not allow a presidency marked by insults, intimidation and unprofessional conduct to drag us backward.
Donald Trump is president.
That does not make aggressive behavior toward a woman doing her job normal or acceptable.
Nor should standing by and watching it happen become normal.