YESTERDAY AFTERNOON, PRESIDENT Donald Trump rang Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to congratulate him on his recent appointment and discuss matters like migration, Brexit, the Peace Process and the plight of the undocumented Irish.
Prior to the pair speaking, Leo kept Trump hanging for 90 seconds before finally answering the phone.
When Leo eventually did pick up the phone, Trump informed him that he had Irish press in the room. He gestured towards RTÉ’s Caitriona Perry and called her over.
Where are you from? Go ahead, come here. We are all over this beautiful Irish press.
After Caitriona Perry identified herself, Trump said, “Caitriona Pery. She has a nice smile on her face so I bet she treats you well.”
The remark, though fairly innocuous by Trump’s standards, was quickly picked up on by international media with many characterising it as creepy and lecherous. Buzzfeed, Time, The Guardian, The Cut and The Hill are among the publications to have run with the story.
Mashable described it as “creepy,” “gross” and “not a good look”. Indeed, it is hard to imagine President Trump ever making a similar remark to any of Perry’s male predecessors like Charlie Bird or Robert Shortt.
Americans are so mortified by the whole ordeal that they’ve started apologising to Perry on the President’s behalf.
For her part, Perry appears to have taken the comment in good spirit.
She told RTÉ:
One minute we were outside the window and the next minute I’m meeting the President of The United States. Usually we would shoot from outside the window of the White House and that’s what we were expecting today but instead we were invited inside to witness the President’s call to the Taoiseach. When we went in he was already on the phone but I managed to catch his eye and he called me over.
Never a dull day in the White House, eh?
