On Nov. 14, 2025, aboard Air Force One, the President of the United States pointed at Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey and snapped, “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.” Why? She had the audacity to ask him a legitimate question about the Epstein files.
Days later, instead of apologizing, the White House defended him and implied that she somehow brought it on herself — that she was “inappropriate” and “unprofessional.”
So let’s be clear: Calling a woman “piggy” from the most powerful office in the world is abuse, not banter.
Suggesting she brought it on herself is classic abuser logic. And when the “CEO of the free world” behaves this way in front of cameras, he is not just expressing a personal opinion — he is modeling a pattern.
While October’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month has just passed, the deeper concern is not timing at all. It is the pattern. Rudeness is one thing; humiliation is another.
In this particular incident, the reporter appears to be white. But we cannot pretend this moment exists in a vacuum. The same president has a long, documented history of calling women pigs, including calling Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado “Miss Piggy” and referring to Rosie O’Donnell as a “big, fat pig.”
And when you step back, a broader pattern comes into focus:
Women who challenge him are “nasty,” “fat,” or “no longer a 10.”
Women of color who challenge him are often hit with both sexist and racialized language.
Black feminist scholar Moya Bailey coined the term misogynoir to describe exactly this: the combination of anti-Black racism and misogyny directed at Black women.
International research on women journalists confirms that sexism, racism, and other forms of hate often blend together in attacks — especially against women of color.
Reports from the UN Human Rights Office, ICFJ, and academic studies show that women journalists face disproportionately high levels of online and offline abuse, and women of color are targeted with a mix of gendered slurs and racist stereotypes.
Those who are most visible and outspoken are more likely to face threats, harassment, and sometimes offline attacks.
So even when a specific slur isn’t explicitly racial, it sits inside a larger ecosystem of contempt for women and especially for women of color.
This isn’t just about one ugly moment. Social science research shows that when politicians use hateful or demeaning language, hate speech and harassment increase among their supporters.
Studies of leader behavior and online discourse find that exposure to derogatory language from elites normalizes prejudice and harassment and that hate speech can spread through networks rapidly when it is modeled by those in power.
In other words, when the president calls a woman “piggy,” it doesn’t stay on the plane. It travels — into homes, social media feeds, school hallways, locker rooms, and workplaces.
Body-shaming is not politics. It is emotional violence.
Teen girls are already navigating brutal pressures — filters, “perfect” bodies on Instagram, bullying in group chats. When they see the president call a woman “piggy” for doing her job, what are we teaching them? And what are we teaching our sons if we let this slide?
When pastors, principals, CEOs, editors, and community leaders say nothing, their silence sounds like approval.
We cannot tell women to report harassment and domestic violence out of one side of our mouths, while we excuse identical patterns of behavior from the most powerful man in the world out of the other.
This is the moment for all of us — parents, grandparents, teachers, pastors, coaches, mentors, journalists to acknowledge this language is abusive, demeaning and dangerous.
Speak up, publicly and privately, when leaders cross these lines. Not just when it’s politically convenient, but when it’s morally necessary.
Because if the president can call a woman “piggy” and blame her for it, and the country shrugs, then the problem is bigger than one man.
We owe women better. We owe our children better. We owe our democracy better.
Dr. Frances Murphy Draper is CEO and publisher of The AFRO-American Newspapers.
This story originally appeared here.