Women: The People Who Stand Up to Trump

Jamie Stiehm
Tue, 02 Dec 2025 18:13:01 -0800
Opinion

Reader, who are the people who have stood up to President Donald Trump and confronted him, face to his furious face?

Answer: Women, and only women, have done so publicly.

Running for president, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris put Trump's misogyny on public display in 2016 and 2024, but that's not what I mean. His break with the former MAGA House mouthpiece, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene ("a traitor") is not what I mean, either.
Updated: Wed Dec 03, 2025

Reader, who are the people who have stood up to President Donald Trump and confronted him, face to his furious face?

Answer: Women, and only women, have done so publicly.

Running for president, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris put Trump's misogyny on public display in 2016 and 2024, but that's not what I mean. His break with the former MAGA House mouthpiece, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene ("a traitor") is not what I mean, either.

Which other women have challenged Trump to bring him to a boiling point?

Leading the list is the House speaker emerita, who crossed swords with Trump and bloodied him every time. The governor of Maine refused to take presidential orders. And the Episcopal bishop invited (or implored) Trump to show "mercy" toward immigrants at a service early this year at the Washington National Cathedral.

Remember?

These yearbook scenes and memories were sparked by Trump's recent outlandish outbursts toward several women White House correspondents who dared to ask hard questions. His rough-cut rage toward each woman erupted like a volcano and silenced their colleagues. These are signs in plain sight the president is escalating his ferocious wrath toward women, especially, of all people. By the way, chivalry is dead in the White House Correspondents' Association.

"Quiet, piggy," Trump said to a Bloomberg White House reporter who asked about the Epstein files. "You're a stupid person," he told a CBS News correspondent who brought up Afghan resettlement. He scolded an ABC News member of the press, calling her a "terrible reporter" when she asked why he was hosting the Saudi Arabian crown prince, a leader suspected of directing a journalist's murder. He labeled a New York Times reporter who wrote on his waning health "ugly."

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi is the most dramatic example, when she defiantly tore apart his State of the Union speech in the House of Representatives. But don't forget Pelosi scolding Trump in a White House meeting in a picture that went viral. At the center of the room, she told Trump: "All roads lead to Putin."

Those were riveting moments of political theater and nonviolent resistance. Of course, Pelosi also led two Trump impeachments successfully. If the Senate had followed suit and convicted him in either trial, he could not have run for president again.

In a winter White House gathering of governors, Maine Gov. Janet Mills was told by Trump to "comply" with a new ban on transgender athletes competing in women's sports. Mills replied, "See you in court." Trump then and there threatened the state with no federal funding and predicted her political career would soon be over. But she did not back down. In fact, she is favored to run in next year's Senate race. Mainers tend to be ruggedly independent.

In the National Cathedral service, the Right Rev. Mariann Budde had the rare chance to address Trump, and she seized the moment. In a voice gentle and low, she pleaded for a mission of mercy.

"I ask you to have mercy upon people in our country who are scared," Budde said, mentioning immigrants who work on farms and in meatpacking plants, office buildings and hospitals. Yet the roundups and deportations had already begun.

Budde also prayed for compassion for gay, lesbian and transgender youth in heightened despair, with suicide crisis lines jammed.

Trump sat not even 15 feet away from Budde and glared at her. He was on the hook, having to listen to a woman's words in a sacred space, lined with stained-glass windows. In front of a nation's eyes, her appeal was a cardinal sin.

So mercy did not win the day, needless to say, and in typical fashion, Trump demanded an apology. Yet Trump did grant clemency, a pardon, to nearly 1,600 Capitol rioters who stormed our marble temple on Jan. 6, 2021. The Capitol was another sacred space that could not be breached, or so we thought.

On a long phone call, Trump demanded Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederikson to hand over Greenland. She resisted the onslaught.

Pelosi is the champion in speaking truth to Trump's face. Some WHCA women are profiles in courage and canaries in the coal mine — revealing the rage rising like a river in Trump's head.