'Piggy' jab shows Trump's true colours

Step by slimy step, President Donald Trump has made us numb to his crudeness and cruelty. The solipsistic Trump, with the parasitic tech emperors and the internet itself, is degrading American values, making honour and integrity seem anachronistic.

- Maureen Dowd

Still, some moments shock beyond the pale. Whatever the pale is anymore.

On Air Force One recently, Mr Trump cut off Catherine Lucey, a Bloomberg News journalist pressing him about the release of Epstein files that could further implicate him in the lurid mess. Stabbing his finger at her face, the president of the United States snapped at Lucey: “Quiet! Quiet, piggy.”

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt later preposterously explained, “The president being frank and open and honest to your faces, rather than hiding behind your backs, is, frankly, a lot more respectful than what you saw in the last administration”.

It was nauseating, if not surprising. Mr Trump loves to call people who annoy him “pigs” and “dogs”, and in the case of his inamorata Stormy Daniels, “horseface”.

It was misogynistic, but Mr Trump bullies both men and women, attacking their looks and character and hurling nasty, intensely personal epithets and nicknames. He mocked Chris Christie, once an ally, as “a fat pig”, “a slob” and “sloppy”