While on his way to the Super Bowl in New Orleans aboard Air Force One, President Donald Trump sparred with a news reporter.
HuffPost reporter S.V. Dáte engaged in a humorous exchange with the president, asking a slightly peculiar question that momentarily caught Trump off guard with his witty reply.
‘The vice president [Vance] suggested that if the [Supreme Court] rules in a way that you don’t like, they can just enforce it by themselves. Do you agree with that?’
Trump responded: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Neither do you. Who are you with?’
‘HuffPost, sir,’ said the senior White House Correspondent.
‘No wonder. I thought they died,’ Trump shot back, shutting down the reporter.
The president added to the brutal dig: ‘Are they still around? I haven’t read them in years.’
As the clip circulated social media, the Huff Post reporter tried to defend the question he posed on the flight from Florida to Louisiana on Sunday.
Explaining his query further, Dáte clarified, “‘The question I asked was if he agreed with VP Vance’s statement that if the high court rules against Trump, he should do like Andrew Jackson and announce that they could enforce that ruling themselves,’ Dáte said on X.”
‘He claimed not to know what I was referring to.’
The clip has garnered nearly one million views since it was posted on X on Sunday.
A HuffPost spokesperson also hit back after the president’s take down of their company, saying: ‘His loss — perhaps his biggest since 2020. Millions of Americans are tuning into HuffPost’s coverage to stay informed about the consequences of Trump’s presidency.’
Dáte had asked Trump about celebrating first responders at the Super Bowl and why he pardoned 1,500 people who participated in the January 6 riot – including some who assaulted officers
‘I pardoned people who were assaulted themselves. They were assaulted by our government,’ he told Date on Air Force One.
‘That’s who were assaulted and they were treated unfairly. There’s never been a group of people in this country outside of maybe one instance I can think of, but I won’t get into it, that were treated more horribly than the people of J6,’ he continued.
‘So no, I didn’t assault. They didn’t assault. They were assaulted, and what I did was a great thing for humanity.’
Before taking questions from the reporters, he signed a proclamation declaring February 9 as Gulf of America Day.
He also announced his plan to impose a 25 percent tariff on all steel and aluminum imports into the United States.
This will include imports from Canada and Mexico, and will likely extend to other import and reciprocal duties to be announced later in the week.
These new tariffs, expected to be formally announced Monday, will come on top of existing metals duty imports.
During his first term, Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, but conceded to duty-free quotas for certain trade partners, including Canada, Mexico and Brazil.
Trump also told the reporters on board he would announce reciprocal tariffs on Tuesday or Wednesday, to take effect almost immediately.
This means Trump intends to impose import duties on products in cases where another country has levied duties on American goods.
‘If they are charging us 130 percent and we’re charging them nothing, it’s not going to stay that way,’ he said.
‘Very simply, it’s if they charge us, we charge them.’
