10-18-18 The news this day was the POTUS open air rally in Bozeman, Montana. Reuters headlines: Trump praises U.S. congressman from Montana who body-slammed reporter (Jeff Mason, 10-18-18). “President Donald Trump on Thursday heaped praise on a U.S. congressman from Montana who body-slammed a reporter during a campaign for a special election in 2017. Trump, who has called the media the enemy of the American people and regularly derides journalists as “fake news,” made his latest remarks during a campaign rally in Montana. Representative Greg Gianforte, who made brief remarks at the rally with Trump, was ordered to perform community service as part of his sentence for attacking Ben Jacobs, a correspondent for Britain’s Guardian newspaper, on May 24, 2017, the day before a special election to fill Montana’s sole congressional seat. “Any guy that can do a body-slam … is my guy,” Trump told supporters at the rally, adding that he was concerned at first that the incident would jeopardize Gianforte’s campaign. “I said: ‘Oh, this is terrible, he’s going to lose the election.’ Then I said: ‘Well, wait a minute, I know Montana pretty well, I think it might help him,’ and it did,” Trump said. Gianforte, who won the election, pleaded guilty to assaulting a reporter.” Same day The Hill headlined: The Guardian slams Trump over comments about assault on reporter (John Bowden, 10-18-18). “British newspaper The Guardian issued a statement criticizing President Trump on Thursday for making light of a congressman’s assault of a Guardian reporter, Ben Jacobs, during a campaign rally in Montana Thursday night. The newspaper’s condemnation came minutes after Trump joked that he thought Montana Rep. Greg Gianforte’s (R) assault of Jacobs during Montana’s special House election last year probably helped Gianforte win the race. “Never wrestle him. Never. Any guy that can do a body slam, he’s my kind of…he’s my guy,” Trump told an audience at his campaign rally in the state Thursday, adding: “I said, ‘Well wait a minute, I know Montana pretty well, I think it might help him,’ and it did…He’s a great guy and a tough cookie.” “The President of the United States tonight applauded the assault of an American journalist working for The Guardian,” the newspaper’s editor John Mulholland wrote in a statement obtained by The Washington Post. Mulholland went on to argue that such statements would only inflame future violence against journalists in the wake of the rumored death of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist for The Washington Post who was last seen entering a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey weeks ago.” Same day the Washington Post printed Jamal Khashoggi’s final column submitted the day before his “disappearance” (authoritarian speak for “killed off”). The Post held off publishing it in hopes its reporter would be around to edit it as done previously so many times before (a lot goes in to getting the news right). The Guardian ended its statement with “”We hope decent people will denounce these remarks and that the president will see fit to apologize for them,” the editor added.” Analysis finds the message to be pretty clear and simple.
Tags: Donald Trump, Fascism, GOP, GOP Party Rally, Jamal Khashoggi, Normal
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