The White House launched a personal attack against a CNN reporter on Monday with a social media post that mentioned her children and accused her of asking a “disgusting and inhumane question”.

A White House post targeted Kristen Holmes, a senior White House correspondent for the network, after she asked Donald Trump to respond to a widely shared comment by Democratic senator Jon Ossoff in a speech on Sunday.

The Georgia senator told a crowd that Trump “doesn’t want to do the job” and instead “wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar”.

The comment was an apparent reference to Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant, fueling scrutiny of her perceived closeness to Trump.

When Holmes asked Trump in the Oval Office to respond to Ossoff’s remark, the president dismissed her, calling the senator a “Pee-wee Herman lookalike”.

The White House’s “rapid response” social media account posted a clip of the exchange and tagged Holmes, calling her a “disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession”.

The post went on to criticize her for taking a “cheap shot” at a staffer, adding: “These scumbags are the lowest of the low.”

The White House later sent out another post criticizing Holmes, writing: “Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive. It’s quite troubling.”

Trump also directly criticized Holmes during the Oval Office event, at one point telling her: “Quiet, quiet, quiet. You’re very disrespectful.” After she told him she worked for CNN, he responded: “Fake news, you’re fake news, you’re a loud boisterous person. You’re fake news. Be quiet. Be quiet. You’re a fake reporter and you report fake news.” He talked over her as she tried to ask a question.

CNN defended Holmes in a statement, calling her “one of the most respected and accomplished journalists covering the White House”.

The network said she had asked Trump a “tough, relevant, and newsworthy question on behalf of the American people”, writing: “Public officials are free to challenge reporting they disagree with, but personal attacks on journalists for asking questions are beneath the office and inconsistent with the principles of a free press.”

Earlier, the White House director of communications also posted a series of insults targeting Ossoff in response to the senator’s speech, writing: “Jon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics.”

Trump has a long history of aggressively attacking and insulting women in the press corps who ask tough questions, including saying, “Quiet, piggy” to a Bloomberg reporter, calling another CNN journalist “corrupt”, and storming out of NBC’s Meet the Press after calling the moderator “crooked or stupid”.

Other journalists condemned the White House’s personal attack against Holmes, with one of her colleagues at CNN saying: “Kristen is an incredible reporter, person and, above all, mother. I don’t understand such a reaction to a journalist asking the president for his response to something a Democratic senator has leveled against him.”