Trump Laughs as Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte Shuts down Human Rights Questions, Calls Journalists “Spies”

Trump continued his tour of Asia this past weekend in the Philippines, where he met with president Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte has been in office since June 2016, and in that time, he has conducted a so-called “drug war” that, per Human Rights Watch, “has led to the deaths of over 12,000 Filipinos to date, mostly urban poor.” Thousands of those deaths can be attributed to the national police, who have been incited by Duterte himself, and are falsifying evidence to justify the killings. Which is to be expected—in his campaign, Duterte practically bragged about his record of killing “do-nothings,” and vowed to keep it going as president.

When Trump and Duterte met with the press on Sunday, it was only natural that reporters would want to ask the Philippines president about these human rights violations. But he wasn’t having it:

Trump allowed Duterte to shut down US reporters’ questions about human rights. Duterte told reporters they weren’t at a news conference. Question wasn’t answered.

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 13, 2017

Trump laughed as Duterte shut down questions. “You are the spies,” Duterte said, referring to press. “Hah, hah, hah,” Trump said laughing. “You are,” Duterte repeated. (per WH pool) https://t.co/K4M2JsQCzw

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 13, 2017

That’s right—in a country where 177 journalists have been killed since 1986, making it “one of the most dangerous countries to practice journalism,” Trump stood by and idly laughed as the president called journalists “spies” and refused to answer their questions about human rights. Once again, the commander-in-chief has done us proud.