President Donald Trump recently took a jab at Fox News host Jessica Tarlov when he phoned into “The Five” on Thursday. The moment highlights Trump’s disdain for members of the media who challenge him — and it’s concerning.

At one point during the president’s phone interview with the Fox News panel, host Jesse Watters quipped that he wants the president’s next appearance to be in the studio so he can sit next to Tarlov, the resident Democrat on the show, who was absent that day.

“I think you’d be a good influence on her,” Watters said.

Trump said that he wasn’t “a fan” of Tarlov, and he accused her of using “fake” polling numbers. “She’ll give, ‘Well, he’s only polling 42%.’ That’s not right. [I’m] polling very high actually.”

“I’m sure I’d like her, I’m sure she’s a lovely person ... she’s just not for me,” he added.

Elsewhere in the segment, Trump set his sights on Tarlov again, saying that he was “glad Jessica’s not there.”

“I think your show would be better without her, but who am I to say that?” he said as her co-hosts smiled and laughed. “I think it would be a lot better.”

Polls have shown that a majority of Americans don’t approve of Trump’s job performance. Recent polling from Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin showed that 56% of Americans are disappointed with the president’s performance, with just 40% who approve. Fox News published a poll Thursday evening showing the president’s overall job rating at 41%.

Tarlov has since hit back after the president criticized her.

“Was so bummed to miss the show today! But I definitely would’ve said he’s even inflating his numbers to 42%!” she quipped in a post on X.

Trump has publicly attacked Tarlov before. Last June, he called her a “failed TV personality” on his Truth Social platform, adding that she was a “disgrace to television broadcasting” after she highlighted his unfavorable polling numbers on the Fox News show. He also called her a “real loser” days later.

Trump and members of his administration have a history of attacking the press and those who challenge and critique the administration and its policies.

Last month, Vice President JD Vance called the press one of the “least trusted institutions” in the country, arguing that journalists who “come across as angry all the time” are “fake.”

“I’m not saying you have to agree with everything that me or President Trump do, but nobody is angry all the time,” he said during a sit-down interview with right-wing pundit Megyn Kelly.

Like Trump, Vance often refers to the press as “fake news.”

Heather Hendershot, historian and professor of communications studies and journalism at Northwestern University, shared last month what she believes is the Trump administration’s “real problem” when it comes to the press.

“The real problem, from the perspective of the Trump administration, is a lack of confidence not in news, but in the White House’s authoritarian objectives,” she previously told HuffPost.

She had also emphasized that in a healthy democracy, journalists serve as “a watchdog function.”

“This might mean revealing cover-ups, ferreting out injustices, or simply holding those in power accountable,” she said at the time.

Trump also has a history of berating females journalists, with a documented pattern of spewing venom and below-the-belt digs.

In November, the president called New York Times reporter Katie Rogers “ugly,” and in December, he called CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins “stupid and nasty,” to name a few examples.

Alexandra Cromer, a licensed professional counselor with Thriveworks, told HuffPost in January that “It’s observable that [Trump] gets very frustrated when he perceives that he is being challenged or questioned by a woman.”

“This is rooted in misogynistic thinking and posits that women are ‘less than’ not just him, but men in general,” she said at the time, adding that she believes Trump “views women as having less self-worth and less capacity than men (particularly, him).”

Kari J. Winter, a professor of American studies at the University at Buffalo — whose expertise includes gender, feminism, race and class — said in January that she believes Trump is “bursting with contempt for women in the same way that he is red-in-the-face with hatred for Black and brown people.”

She added that Trump’s “repetitious insults are fueled by the most common tropes of misogyny.”

“If the president’s behavior is not challenged and continues to be normalized, we could see women lose rights, respect, and we can even predict a potential increase in violence toward women as a whole,” she told HuffPost at the time.

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