Trump says New York Times journalist is ‘loaded up with bedbugs’ in Twitter rant denying infestation at luxury golf resort

President ridicules anti-Trump columnist after taking aim at Republican rivals in 2020 presidential race

Donald Trump has mocked a New York Times columnist who quit Twitter after being called a “bedbug”, while denying claims the same blood-sucking insects have infested his luxury Florida golf resort.

The president said his frequent critic Bret Stephens was a “loser” who was “loaded up” with bedbugs, in tweets which sustained the tiny pest’s bizarre prominence in the US news cycle this week.

But his Doral golf resort, he insisted, was clear of the nuisance insect – despite reports of a “severe” infestation at villas where Mr Trump hopes to host next year’s G7 summit.

In 2017 the Trump Organisation reportedly settled a lawsuit with a guest who claimed he awoke in one of Doral’s rooms the previous year to find himself covered in bites.

In a Twitter rant that began late on Tuesday and resumed Wednesday morning, the president made no reference to the legal action and falsely claimed the “radical left” had “made up” the Doral bedbugs story.

He later suggested “lightweight journalist Bret Stephens” had infested his newspaper’s offices with bedbugs, sarcastically calling the columnist a “tough guy” for deactivating his Twitter after being ridiculed over his reaction to a joke at his expense.

David Karpf, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, had poked fun at Mr Stephens – who has faced criticism for his views on climate change, rape, and race – after it emerged the Times’s Manhattan offices had been overrun with the insects.

“The bedbugs are a metaphor,” he wrote. “The bedbugs are Bret Stephens.”

The tweet, which Mr Stephens was not tagged in and initially received little attention, prompted the Times columnist to send an angry email to the professor and his university’s provost (head of the university).

In the email, he invited the academic to come to his house to meet his wife and children and call him a “‘bedbug’ to my face”.

Mr Karpf shared the message on Twitter, triggering a deluge of ridicule which prompted Mr Stephens to abandon the social media platform.

Mr Trump joined in the mockery on Wednesday morning, tweeting: “He is now quitting Twitter after being called a ‘bedbug.’ Tough guy!”

Late on Tuesday, the president also took aim at his Republican rivals in the 2020 presidential race.

“Can you believe it? I’m at 94% approval in the Republican Party, and have Three Stooges running against me,” he tweeted.

He mocked South Carolina congresswoman Mark Sanford, who has indicated he is considering running against Mr Trump, as “Mr Appalachian Trail who was actually in Argentina for bad reasons”.

The tweet referenced a 2009 scandal in which the then state governor travelled to Buenos Aires to see a woman with whom he had been having an extramarital affair. Amid questions about his whereabouts, Mr Sanford’s office claimed he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Joe Walsh, who Mr Trump dismissed as a “one-time BAD Congressman from Illinois”, and former Massachusetts governor William Weld, who he said “couldn’t stand up straight while receiving an award”, have already announced primary campaigns against the president.