Greg Gianforte just body slammed me and broke my glasses
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) May 24, 2017
The eve of a tight Congressional special election in Montana turned violent as Republican candidate Greg Gianforte assaulted a reporter who tried to ask a question. Fox’s Alicia Acuna has written about what she witnessed and she includes an audio of the incident. It’s very, very disturbing.
In her account on FoxNews.com, Acuna says she was setting up in advance of a scheduled interview with Gianforte along with her field producer and photographer. While she and her crew with chatting with Gianforte before the interview, Acuna wrote, a reporter from The Guardian, Ben Jacobs, persistently asked Gianforte for a response to the Congressional Budget Office score of the American Health Care Act, i.e. “Trumpcare.”
At that point, Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him. Faith, Keith and I watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the man, as he moved on top the reporter and began yelling something to the effect of "I'm sick and tired of this!"
[…]
To be clear, at no point did any of us who witnessed this assault see Jacobs show any form of physical aggression toward Gianforte, who left the area after giving statements to local sheriff's deputies.
As Acuna noted, Gianforte has issued a statement blaming Jacobs:
Gianforte's statement: pic.twitter.com/WVNdA1yZ8w
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) May 25, 2017
As Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert noted, presumably Gianforte issued that statement before he knew there was audio proving it a lie. Gianforte is not heard to ask Jacobs to lower his recorder in the audio of the incident.
It’s not surprising that Gianforte should be feeling edgy. Just today, Politico reported that his race against Democrat Rob Quist is “closer than it should be” in this GOP stronghold. The special election is tomorrow.
By the way, I did not see Acuna file any report tonight on Fox News. Did I miss it? Do you think that if a Democratic candidate for Congress assaulted a reporter on the eve of an election I'd be able to miss it on Fox?
Meanwhile, listen to the audio of the assault below. But be warned that it is disturbing.
UPDATE: Gianforte has been charged with assault.
Acuna herself brought up the fact that he’d asked for their names, but that they were so shocked by that assault that they didn’t respond immediately. I’ve been in a situation like that myself, and I was struck literally dumb by it.
Lastly, the idea they only came forward after the publicity about this embarrassed them is pure BS. We only learned that they’d even been there when they spoke up about it themselves.
I agree with you 100 percent, though, about early voting. It’s always bothered me for exactly this reason.
One is Acuna and her Fox News team’s behavior during the incident. When the assaulted Guardian reporter asked for their names and called for the police, the Fox crew is heard on the tape parroting the assulter, Giaforte, in telling him to leave the room and they refused to support him by giving their names. Excuses came later after news attention embarrassed them.
The other thing is this is a case of early voting being a problem. I still support it 100% but the issue here is most of the ballots have been cast so many Montanans shocked by this criminal thuggery can’t rescind their vote to vote their conscience. Since it’s billed as a close election because of the orange orangutan in the White House I’m hoping there’s still enough ballots to be cast to tip the balance away from the violent a-hole Giaforte.
Finally, the conservative sheriff investigating the crime is a big Giaforte booster who’s given hundreds of dollars to his campaign. Unsurprisingly he’s downplayed the crime to a misdemeanor.
This tiny incident out in the boondocks (apologies to the fine state of Montana) may open the eyes of a lot of people. Thanks to Ms Acuna we have proof that the journalist was simply doing his job. His only “wrong” was being from the Guardian, i.e. a foreigner and a liberal.
Nothing like that has ever happened before on Fox.
I’m not particularly dismayed she didn’t get an on-air report about it on the air immediately, but I will be surprised if she doesn’t tomorrow.