Donald Trump Jr ridiculed for scolding lesson to journalists after Biden fitness regimen story

The former president’s son complained about soft-ball questions from the media

Donald Trump Jr rants about a White House reporter asking about Joe Biden’s weight lifting routine (screengrab)

Donald Trump Jr became incensed after a White House reporter asked press secretary Jen Psaki about Joe Biden's weight-lifting routine.

"I can tell you traveling with him a fair amount, sometimes he's hard to keep up with," Ms Psaki responded.

The former president's son launched into a rant complaining that Mr Biden, who is 78 years old, appears to struggle sometimes with mobility issues.

"Really Jen?" Mr Trump Jr asked in a video he posted. “He can’t walk up the stairs of Air Force One without falling over! Now, if you said that he’s hard to keep up with because you have no idea what the hell he is saying when he’s speaking, that I would understand. But if you’re going to tell me that he’s hard to keep up with physically when we don’t see him doing anything early, we see lids being called in the middle of the day, you don’t see him doing anything late.”

The thought of Mr Biden being "difficult to keep up with" was the part that apparently made the former president's son especially upset, though he also took a shot at the media for asking soft-ball, ingratiating questions about the president.

“I mean, does anyone really believe he’s hard to keep up with?” he asked. “You and I and any reasonable being with a brain has no idea what he’s saying. But these are the hard-hitting questions from the media. I mean, oh, we’re blowing it out. This is journalism. They’re asking all the tough questions! What the hell are you asking about?”

While the White House press corps has long been criticised for sometimes asking inane questions that seem poised to give press secretaries opportunities to boost their bosses, it is especially hypocritical that the son of Donald Trump would complain about fawning media coverage.

It is true that Mr Trump was met with well-earned hostility from the press, who he called an "enemy of the people”, often encouraging his supporters to harass media members during his MAGA rallies. However, there were plenty of media outlets – Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax in particular – that fawned over the former president without a word of criticism from his son.

Former Fox News host Lou Dobbs was one of the most shameless sycophants for Mr Trump, telling colleague Sean Hannity in 2017 that the then-president was "pretty close to perfect”.

In 2019, he agreed with a pastor who said Mr Trump was "Sent from God”, and later that year claimed that there was "sunshine beaming throughout the place, and on almost every face”.

He once called Mr Trump the "greatest president in the history of our country," and later posted a poll that could have been lifted right out of North Korea state media, in which he asked how viewers would rate Mr Trump's Covid-19 response.

The responses available in the poll were "superb," "great," and "very good."

Mr Trump Jr did not appear to have any issue with that level of journalistic malfeasance when it was directed at his father.

The president’s son’s rant earned him mockery on social media.