We are going through the usual cycle anew now, with complaints that President Trump has been crude towards the media. The latest, courtesy of the Washington Post, concerns an exchange, and the subsequent social media post, involving CNN White House correspondent Kristen Holmes. The outrage is both expected and overblown, but then this is the press corps we are discussing.

Holmes was on her current kick of focusing on presidential aide Natalie Harp and asked the president a direct question about Senator John Ossoff’s mention of Natalie in a recent speech. Holmes delivered a profile on Harp for CNN Digital, and following her query of the president, a tense exchange developed.

President Trump reacted to her continuing to inject questions, the latter about North Korea, and he asked about her outlet and delivered his rebuke that CNN is “fake news.” What has touched off a firestorm was a social media post from the White House Rapid Response account that called out Holmes for her line of questioning and mentioned that her children may one day be embarrassed by her behavior.

.@KristenhCNN: Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive. It’s quite troubling. https://t.co/EWgPy7mXQP

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 17, 2026

It was an odd retort from the account, but the level of outrage did not exactly measure up to the comments. Scott Nover says that what they did was “invoking her children,” but that is a stretch. This was not an attack or commentary even of her kids, it was the White House account pointing out that, as a mother, they took issue with her questioning.

Again, it is a ham-fisted comment where one struggles to make a connection, but this was not an “attack” on the children of Kristen Holmes. Yet this is the impression delivered. There is a measure of hyperbole in all of this, and it defies the bold nature many reporters prefer to drape upon themselves.

It always sounds desperate when the press declares that Trump has “attacked” any of them with his harsh retorts. It has been said that this is unseemly and not the way a president should behave with the media, and most of it is unprecedented, as well as un-presidential. But mostly that is a result of Trump never having likened himself to a politician.

Conventions and decorum have long been waylaid with him, and he has refused to play by many of the rules in D.C. since he first took office. That is not a defense of his actions or words; it is stating the obvious. What is also in play is something the Washington Post and the rest of the media do not want to address: They are hardly blameless in these contretemps.

If you want to call out the president for graceless or vulgarian behavior, you will get no argument. But for the press to play it off as if they have no participation in the conflict is ridiculous. For years they have freely accused the president of any worst-case accusation, all while labeling him everything from a “Nazi” to “fascist” and “pedophile.” For them to then follow with gasps and swooning over likewise responses is too precious to digest.

The current fainting couch reactions also undercut the usual narratives self-applied by journalists of their bold, warrior-like status. It is a tough sell to claim to be in possession of stern character and then turn around and let out “how DARE he!” responses to name-calling.

Both sides of this conflict are acting in what most consider an unacceptable fashion. The press needs to either acknowledge that they are just as culpable in the tensions being created, or they need to remember their claims of possessing spines of titanium. Wailing over crude responses is not the reaction of the bold.

The post The President and the Press On Kristen Holmes: Two Sides with Crude Behavior While Only One Can Be Offended first appeared on Mediaite.

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