{"id":381883,"date":"2018-10-21T15:30:05","date_gmt":"2018-10-21T14:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trump-praises-montana-congressman-who-body-slammed-reporter-rt-us-news\/"},"modified":"2018-10-21T15:30:05","modified_gmt":"2018-10-21T14:30:05","slug":"trump-praises-montana-congressman-who-body-slammed-reporter-rt-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trump-praises-montana-congressman-who-body-slammed-reporter-rt-us-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump praises Montana Congressman who body-slammed reporter \u2014 RT US News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2018.10\/thumbnail\/5bca0692fc7e933e348b45ae.JPG\" \/><\/p>\n<p>        US President Donald Trump praised the wrestling skills of Republican Congressman Greg Gianforte, who body-slammed a Guardian reporter to the ground at a campaign event last year. Needless to say, the liberal media is appalled. <\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Gianforte was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/389738-montana-gop-candidate-charged-assault\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">convicted<\/a> of assault after he grabbed Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs by the neck and body-slammed him to the ground at a campaign event on the eve of Montana\u2019s special election in 2017. The slam broke Jacobs\u2019 glasses and Gianforte punched the winded reporter on the ground.<\/p>\n<p>Gianforte later apologized to Jacobs, donated $50,000 to the Committee To Protect Journalists, paid a fine and served 40 hours of community service. He went on to beat his Democratic challenger &#8211; country musician Rob Quist &#8211; and now represents Montana in the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"media__youtube-frame\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300px\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aovYhuOodyw\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Speaking to supporters at a campaign-style rally in Missoula, Montana, on Thursday, Trump praised Gianforte\u2019s wrestling skills, drawing cheers and laughs from the crowd.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cBy the way, never wrestle him,\u201d<\/em> Trump said. <em>\u201cAny guy that can do a body-slam, he\u2019s my kind of guy. He\u2019s my guy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Trump recalled hearing about the incident while he was in Rome, and Gianforte was pulling ahead in the polls. <em>\u201cAnd I said, oh, this is terrible. He\u2019s going to lose the election,\u201d<\/em> Trump recalled. <em>\u201cAnd then I said, well, wait a minute. I know Montana pretty well. I think it might help him. And it did.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/441037-kanye-trump-reaction-mentally-ill\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">READ MORE:\u00a0\u2018Mentally ill\u2019, \u2018illiterate\u2019, \u2018incel\u2019: Liberals vent fury as Kanye West visits Trump in White House<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The fighting talk continued later in the rally, when Trump brought up former Vice President Joe Biden\u2019s comment that he would <em>\u201cbeat the hell out of\u201d<\/em> Trump, were the two in high school together. <em>\u201cHe\u2019d be down, faster than Greg would take him down,\u201d<\/em> Trump said.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, the Guardian wasn\u2019t pleased with Trump\u2019s words, with the newspaper\u2019s US editor saying Trump\u2019s remarks run <em>\u201cthe risk of inviting other assaults on journalists both here and across the world.\u201d<\/em> CNN\u2019s Jim Acosta, a relentless Trump opponent, was disturbed, and found the crowd\u2019s enthusiasm highly triggering.<\/p>\n<div class=\"rtcode\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The disturbing part of Trump\u2019s jokes about Gianforte was the effect on the crowd. I saw one young man in the crowd making body slam gestures. He looked at me and ran his thumb across his throat. I talked to him after the rally was over. He couldn\u2019t stop laughing.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jim Acosta (@Acosta) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Acosta\/status\/1053247956776878080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 19, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>Acosta clearly had a bad night, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/441716-cnn-acosta-twitter-caporale\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">telling<\/a> a former White House official to <em>\u201cf*ck off\u201d<\/em> later on, after some mild trolling on Twitter. Other media types reacted similarly negatively:<\/p>\n<div class=\"rtcode\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Amazing, after calling Dems the party of mobs and violence, Trump is now praising and complimenting Greg Gianforte for &#8220;body slamming&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Bencjacobs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@Bencjacobs<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sam Stein (@samstein) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/samstein\/status\/1053089661382471685?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 19, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"rtcode\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Trump is constantly escalating. He did a veiled reference to Gianforte&#8217;s assault at a September Montana rally, saying the congressman is a fighter in more ways than one. This time, just came out with it.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Daniel Dale (@ddale8) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ddale8\/status\/1053091525184446465?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 19, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"rtcode\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Trump is now openly condoning violence against journalists: At Thursday night\u2019s rally in Montana, he explicitly praised Greg Gianforte for criminally assaulting a reporter <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/tnmn8agPkK\">https:\/\/t.co\/tnmn8agPkK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mark Follman (@markfollman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/markfollman\/status\/1053114734180884480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 19, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>As well as a skilled wrestler of reporters, Gianforte is a wealthy software entrepreneur, and has made an estimated $315 million from the sale of two of his tech companies. He is a staunch conservative, and a passionate creationist, who once donated $290,000 to the Glendive Dinosaur &amp; Fossil Museum, which teaches that the world is around 5,000 years old, and dinosaurs and humans once lived side by side.<\/p>\n<p>Gianforte is currently polling nine points ahead of Democratic challenger Kathleen Williams, in a state that has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1996, and elected Trump by a 20 point margin in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Trump had barely taken off from Montana on Thursday, before Williams\u2019 campaign team released a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ffD7rM5f2b0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">video<\/a> featuring audio recording of Gianforte\u2019s attack on Jacobs. Accusing him of <em>\u201cassault and lies,\u201d<\/em> Williams\u2019 video states <em>\u201cthis is not who we are\u201d<\/em> as Montanans.<\/p>\n<p>Voters in the Big Sky State will decide that for themselves on November 6.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Like this story? Share it with a friend!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/441765-trump-montana-body-slam\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US President Donald Trump praised the wrestling skills of Republican Congressman Greg Gianforte, who body-slammed a Guardian reporter to the ground at a campaign event last year. Needless to say, the liberal media is appalled. Gianforte was convicted of assault after he grabbed Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs by the neck and body-slammed him to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":381884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-381883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}