--- title: Why Won't President Trump Insult Me? description: Joel Stein demands President Donald Trump insult him like he has so many other members of the media — from Mika Brzezinski to Glenn Beck canonical: https://time.com/4865971/donald-trump-insults-media-but-not-me/ author: Joel Stein article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-07-20T10:55:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-07-09T08:19:44.253Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Mr. President, I Demand You Do Your Duty and Insult Me. Please? og:description: 'He's insulted journalists I haven't even heard of, and I'm a journalist' og:url: https://time.com/4865971/donald-trump-insults-media-but-not-me/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2d27f67ae355515b/6988d666fb4eac67e9892fc7/time_stein_target01.jpg?branch=production&width=1080&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: time_stein_target01 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Mr. President, I Demand You Do Your Duty and Insult Me. Please? twitter:description: 'He's insulted journalists I haven't even heard of, and I'm a journalist' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2d27f67ae355515b/6988d666fb4eac67e9892fc7/time_stein_target01.jpg?branch=production&width=1080&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Mr. President, I Demand You Do Your Duty and Insult Me. Please? by [Joel Stein](https://time.com/author/joel-stein/) ## Joel Stein Jul 20, 2017 10:55 AM UTC  Illustration by Alex Eben Meyer for TIME by [Joel Stein](https://time.com/author/joel-stein/) ## Joel Stein Jul 20, 2017 10:55 AM UTC A year ago mainstream journalists were insignificant — usurped by bloggers, tweeters, podcasters and selfies of women doing [yoga](http://time.com/4822302/yoga-meditation-genes-stress/). But now we’re getting into personal feuds with the President, a distinction once reserved for dictators, political rivals, union leaders and [Donald Trump](http://time.com/4499409/barack-obama-donald-trump-birth-certificate-joke/). President Trump spends more time on journalism criticism than Columbia’s graduate school. He’s insulted journalists I haven’t even heard of, and I’m a journalist. He has viciously taunted [Glenn Beck](http://time.com/4623423/glenn-beck-fake-news/), MSNBC’s [Mika Brzezinski](http://time.com/4838899/donald-trump-twitter-morning-joe-mike-brzezinski/), _The View_‘s [Joy Behar](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/685205850558980097), Yahoo News’ Matt Bai and Lisa Belkin, and _New York Times_ writers Charles Blow, Frank Bruni, David Brooks and Michael Barbaro. These are just the B’s. So I feel deeply insignificant, because Trump has not once threatened, mocked, discredited or belittled me, leaving me feeling like a washed-up celebrity in the front row of a [Don Rickles](http://time.com/4731430/don-rickles-obituary-rabbi/) show. It’s not like I haven’t tried to bait him. I’ve insulted him on Twitter, in my column, on radio shows and on cable-news programs. I’ve even tried on the phone and in person. The closest I came was when I told him I was surprised that he was offering to shake my hand despite his being a germophobe. “What am I going to catch from you?” he asked in a way that seemed like an insult at the time, but now that I’ve become more familiar with his history, I realize this was just his way of acknowledging that I’m white. And Trump must be familiar with my writing. He likes TIME so much that someone in his orbit created a [fake TIME cover](http://time.com/4836933/donald-trump-fake-time-cover/) of him to put on the walls of his golf club. I don’t know exactly what articles run inside his fake version of TIME, but I’m guessing that if anything from real TIME runs in fake TIME, it’s got to be my column. A few months ago I asked Hope Hicks, the White House director of strategic communications, how I could provoke the President into retaliating, and she told me to just keep doing what I do. It has not worked. Fake news! In desperation, I prostrated myself before successful Trump aggravators, begging for tips on how to be Trumpsulted™. I asked Kurt Andersen, who as co-founder and co-editor of _Spy_ published the ‘short-fingered vulgarian’ insult and is co-writing a book with Alec Baldwin called [_You Can’t Spell America Without Me: The Really Tremendous Inside Story of My Fantastic First Year as President Donald J. Trump_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0525521992/?tag=timecom-20). He’s been [Trumpsulted](http://pagesix.com/2009/07/13/donald-trump-rips-third-rate-kurt-andersen/)™ as a “third-rate writer and an unsuccessful one at that.” To get that kind of presidential attention, Andersen suggested that I chronicle a fake affair with [Melania Trump](http://time.com/4846763/melania-trump-says-all-people-should-be-allowed-to-live-their-lives-without-fear/), naming dates when she was apart from her husband. I was going to try this on Twitter when I realized that my lovely wife, Cassandra, would see it and then make fun of me for insinuating that Melania would ever have any interest in me. S.E. Cupp, a conservative host on HLN who has been [Trumpsulted](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/674777043163332608)™ as a “totally biased loser who doesn’t have a clue” and “one of the least talented people on television,” said I was going to have a tough time. “It seems to help if you have a uterus,” she explained. Also, I needed a more prominent weakness. “Can you become a celebrated POW? A disabled journalist? An overweight woman? Or a man of below-average height?” she asked. Cupp has the advantage of being considered a traitor, since she’s a conservative. Trump sent her a housewarming gift when she moved into one of his buildings and asked her to introduce him at an event before she turned on him. All I had was our one possibly racist handshake. But I will not give up. I will point out that his [tiny hands](http://time.com/4539487/donald-trump-small-hands/) apparently cannot pull his necktie above his knees. I will remind everyone that golfers — especially ones who don’t drink — never drive carts on the green. I will bring up the fact that people with great stamina don’t fall asleep in the middle of a rage tweet and type “[covfefe](http://time.com/4799053/donald-trump-covfefe-twitter/).” I will accuse him of mistaking Theodore Roosevelt’s advice as “tweet loudly and carry a tiny glove.” And I will most certainly remind the man who spends so much time selling heterosexual machismo that no straight man I’ve ever met cares about beauty pageants. The best guess I have for the winner of the last Miss USA pageant is “Miss USA.” Because when you have a President so threatened by facts and opinions that oppose his views that he tweets about the media more than his policies, it makes being a journalist more important than it’s ever been in my career. 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