President Trump is heaping praise on a Congressman who physically assaulted a reporter.<\/b>
\nLast year, Montana Congressman Greg Gianforte was charged with assault after a run-in with Ben Jacobs, a reporter for The Guardian who was in Montana covering the Special Election in which Gianforte was running to replace Ryan Zinke, who President Trump had selected to become Secretary of the Interior. During the incident in question, which Jacobs captured in audio form on his smartphone, Gianforte attacked Jacobs after he had asked a question. Gianforte was ultimately charged with assault in the case but quickly settled with Jacobs and pled guilty to the crime, for which he ultimately received a sentence that involved anger management counseling and community service but no jail time. Notwithstanding the assault, which occurred in the closing days of the campaign, Gianforte ultimately went on to win the election and is now running for a full term in the midterm election that is now less than twenty years away.
Last night, President Trump held a campaign rally in Montana that was mainly meant to boost the campaign of Republican Senate nominee Matt Rosendale, who is seeking to unseat Democratic Senator Jon Tester, but that didn\u2019t stop the President from bringing up the Gianforte incident, and heaping praise on the Congressman for breaking the law:
MISSOULA, Mont. \u2014 President Donald Trump on Thursday openly praised Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) for assaulting a reporter in his bid for Congress last year, as the United States faced an unfolding crisis over missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who is believed to have been killed by Saudi Arabian agents.
The remarks from Trump at a campaign rally \u2014 staged at an airport hangar here with a mountainous backdrop \u2014 drew boisterous cheers from the conservative crowd, who applauded as Trump noted of Gianforte: \u201dBy the way, never wrestle him.\u201d
\u201cAny guy that can do a body slam, he\u2019s my kind of \u2014 he\u2019s my guy,\u201d Trump said.
Gianforte pleaded guilty to assaulting Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs, an altercation that occurred in the final days of Gianforte\u2019s special election race in May 2017 when Jacobs tried to interview him about the GOP health-care plan. The then-candidate grabbed Jacobs, threw him to the ground and punched him. Gianforte subsequently won the special election, and later pleaded guilty, receiving a six-month deferred sentence.
Trump had referenced the assault during a campaign swing in Billings, Mont., in September, noting in almost a winking manner to the crowd that Gianforte \u201dhas fought \u2014 in more ways than one \u2014 for your state.\u201d
But in Missoula on Thursday \u2014 a liberal enclave in the state surrounded by conservative territory \u2014 Trump went much further in his praise.
Trump recalled that as he was traveling in Rome last May, he heard that Gianforte had body-slammed a journalist shortly before voters went to the polls in his closely contested election race \u2014 and initially thought the altercation would damage Gianforte\u2019s prospects.
\u201cThen I said, \u2018well wait a minute, I know Montana pretty well. I think it might help him,’\u201d Trump told the crowd in Missoula. \u201cAnd it did.\u201d
In a statement, the Guardian\u2019s U. S. editor denounced Trump\u2019s remarks as \u201can attack on the First Amendment by someone who has taken an oath to defend it.\u201d
\u201cThe President of the United States tonight applauded the assault on an American journalist who works for the Guardian,\u201d editor John Mulholland said, adding that in the wake of Khashoggi\u2019s death, Trump\u2019s statement \u201cruns the risk of inviting other assaults on journalists both here and across the world where they often face far greater threats.\u201d
\u201cWe hope decent people will denounce these comments and that the president will see fit to apologize for them,\u201d he said.
Amber Phillips at The Washington Post comments:
The president celebrating physical violence against a journalist would be notable enough in a vacuum. But it comes during a week in which there is international outrage against the probable killing of another journalist, Jamal Khashoggi
Trump seems aware of the impact his divisive words against journalists carry \u2014 and he uses them anyway. He frequently calls the press \u201cthe enemy of the people.\u201d His White House press secretary refused to condemn Trump supporters\u2019 profanity directed at CNN\u2019s Jim Acosta at a recent rally.
At a rally in September in Montana, Trump hinted that he was proud of Gianforte for the attack against Guardian reporter Jacobs. That drew headlines too, though his words were less blunt than his comments Thursday.
\u201cAnd I\u2019ll tell you what, this man has fought \u2014 in more ways than one \u2014 for your state,\u201d Trump said then.
On Thursday, Trump tacked on at the very end an acknowledgment about how it might get him in trouble: \u201cI shouldn\u2019t say this.\u201d
In that \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview about Khashoggi, Trump acknowledged that he wasn\u2019t the likeliest candidate to stand up for a reporter\u2019s disappearance:
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot at stake. And maybe especially so because this man was a reporter. There\u2019s something \u2014 you\u2019ll be surprised to hear me say that. There\u2019s something really terrible and disgusting about that, if that were the case.\u201d
It\u2019s generally not surprising to hear a president condemn violence against a journalist. It is surprising to hear him condone it.
New York Times columnist David Leonhardt says much the same thing:
Since he began running for president in 2015, Trump has tried to discredit almost any independent source of information he did not like \u2014 be it from journalists, federal judges, the C. I. A., the F. B. I., the Congressional Budget Office or scientists. Trump has also repeatedly encouraged or praised violence committed by people he considers allies against people he does not.
Trump is not \u2014 thank goodness \u2014 an autocratic ruler of the United States. But he is behaving like one. Encouraging violence against political opponents is no joke when it comes from the president. It is a classic tool of autocracy. And it\u2019s one more sign that Trump does not accept fundamental tenets of democracy, including the rule of law.
The president, writes The New Yorker\u2019s Jeffrey Toobin, \u201ctonight celebrates an assault on a reporter in Montana at the same time as his Administration tries to minimize the murder of a reporter in Turkey. His words matter, and they reveal his character.\u201d
Here\u2019s the video:
Coming from any other President, of course, this would be surprising and shocking. Coming from Trump, it\u2019s just another example of his disdain for political and social norms and his utter contempt for the media and freedom of the press. This, after all, is the President who has referred to the press as the \u201cenemy of the people\u201d on many occasions. On other occasions, both he and members of his Administration has suggested that the media should be criminally charged for publishing leaked information even when that information isn\u2019t classified. At a rally in Arizona last year, Trump upped his anti-media rhetoric by referring to members of the media as \u201dsick people\u201d who \u201cdon\u2019t like our country,\u201d and who are \u201ctrying to take away our history and our heritage.\u201d Recently, Trump admitted that when he said that when he refers to \u201cFake News\u201d he means any news coverage that is critical of him or his Administration regardless of whether it\u2019s true or not. Finally, the President has admitted that the purpose behind all of these attacks on the media is quite simple in that it is aimed at discrediting the media in the minds of his supporters so that they won\u2019t believe any of the bad news that is reported about his or his Administration.
Taking all that into account, it\u2019s hardly surprising that the same President who calls the media the \u201cenemy of the people\u201d would cheer on a Republican candidate who physically attacked a reported without provocation, or that the crowd he was speaking to would cheer it on in the rather sick manner that they did. This is the America Donald Trump is creating, and these are the people who support him.<\/p>\n

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