President Donald Trump has not reacted well to being told by the courts he cannot put his name on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. From putting a tarp over the building's name in the early morning hours to vowing to shut it down altogether unless he gets his way, the Republican leader has vented his ire repeatedly.
Now a new report claims that Trump insulted Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), who serves on the board, by calling the African American female lawmaker "dumb" in a tense phone call with the board — although she replied with insults of her own.
"He went into a tantrum," Beatty told MS NOW host Ari Melber on Tuesday. "Let me just make it simple: it was the most unprofessional thing that I've ever witnessed or been a part of. He went into name-calling — from trying to say that I was an obstructionist, to saying I was 'dumb.' He said, 'I think you're incompetent.' And I said, 'I know you're incompetent.' And I looked to the chair, who was chairman, and I said, 'Are we really gonna do this? This is unprofessional.' But I was not going to let him call me awful things. And he said he was gonna hold me responsible if something fell out of the ceiling and killed someone."
Beatty added, "And I told him, I said, 'You're already killing people. We're at war. We also have people who are starving. You're doing this.'"
When Trump then rejoinder by saying this was was the biggest thing Beatty had ever done, she says she "reminded him that he had more bankruptcies than anybody in the room."
Laughing, she added that "it really went there, because I was not going to let him — he was there in his role as chairman of the board — I was not going to let him bully me, intimidate me."
Melber noted that Trump has a long history of challenging the intelligence of women, particularly those who are critical of him. He told Beatty that Trump seemed to "berate a distinguished member of Congress who happens to be a woman. He does not like strong women. We know that very much." Beatty did not contest that characterization, pivoting to how Trump should have bigger priorities than slapping his name on an arts center.
"This is a man that has us at war, people are dying," Beatty told Melber. "This is a man that wants to rename countries, and so many other things."