Donald Trump insults people the way some people breathe: reflexively, constantly and without much thought.

But even by Trumpian standards, hearing the president of the United States refer to a female reporter as “that bitch” should have landed with a thud inside the White House press corps.

Instead, apparently, it landed with silence. And that silence says more than Trump’s insult ever could.

Trump’s contempt for journalists — particularly women journalists — is no longer surprising. It is part of the performance. ABC’s Rachel Scott has been called “obnoxious” and “terrible.” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins was labeled “stupid” and “nasty.” CBS journalist Nancy Cordes was asked, “Are you stupid?” New York Times reporter Katie Rogers was called “ugly.” A Bloomberg reporter got “quiet piggy.”

The list goes on because the behavior goes on.

MSNOW host Nicolle Wallace recently laid out many of those examples on air before arriving at the obvious conclusion: “This is sick sh–.”

And she’s right.

It is sick. It is juvenile. It is unprofessional. It is unbecoming of the office Trump holds. And perhaps most revealing of all, it is usually deployed when Trump faces uncomfortable questions he either does not want to answer or cannot answer. For a man who endlessly boasts about strength, his default response to scrutiny is remarkably flimsy: insults, nicknames, bullying and public humiliation. The intellectual depth of it all is somewhere between a middle school lunch table and an episode of “South Park.”

Eric Cartman with nuclear codes.

But here’s the part that should trouble journalists most: Almost nobody in the room ever says anything. Not in the moment. Not when it actually matters.

The postgame commentary always comes later. Cable hosts condemn it. Columnists lament it. Social media balloons with outrage. But when the president of the United States openly demeans a reporter to her face — or behind her back within earshot of others — the room tends to go quiet.

Why?

Because access is currency. The White House press corps operates inside a system where proximity to power is treated as prestige. Challenge Trump too directly and you risk becoming the story yourself. Worse, you risk losing access altogether. No interview. No seat. No insider moment. No presidential nod across the briefing room. So too many journalists sit there like nervous fourth graders hoping not to get kicked out of the cool kids’ table.

That’s the real scandal here. The press is supposed to hold power accountable, not nervously orbit it.

Imagine if, after Trump insulted a reporter, another journalist simply said, “Mr. President, that language is inappropriate.” Imagine the impact if several reporters did it together. Imagine if the room collectively decided basic professional standards still mattered.

What would Trump do? Ban the entire press corps? Highly unlikely. (It seems the only thing he likes more than insulting the press is the attention they slavishly give him.)

But if the press corps did punch back, it would remind Americans that journalism is not supposed to be a loyalty test. Reporters are not there to protect a president’s feelings or preserve their own access. They are there to ask difficult questions on the public’s behalf.

And when one reporter is singled out for abuse, especially for simply doing her job, the rest of the profession should not stare silently at their shoes.

Trump’s behavior is ugly. We already know that.

What’s becoming harder to stomach is watching so many supposedly tough journalists pretend not to notice.