Breaking News Emails
Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
MISSOULA, Mont. — President Donald Trump praised Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., Thursday for physically assaulting a reporter during a House race last year — remarks that come amid calls for Trump to hold Saudi Arabia responsible for the disappearance and apparent killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“Never wrestle him,” Trump said of Gianforte at a campaign rally here. “Any guy that can do a body slam, he’s my guy.”
Gianforte pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault last year after Ben Jacobs, a reporter for The Guardian, said that the then-candidate “body-slammed” him after he asked a question about health care. Gianforte was sentenced to 40 hours of community service, 20 hours of anger-management counseling and payment of a $385 fine. As part of a civil settlement, he apologized for responding with physical violence to a question Jacobs asked about health care policy.
Cheered on by the crowd at a rally set against the colorful backdrop of a Big Sky sunset, Trump added that he didn’t think at the time that the episode would hurt Gianforte with Montana voters — “I think it might help him,” Trump recalled thinking. “And it did.”
vCard.red is a free platform for creating a mobile-friendly digital business cards. You can easily create a vCard and generate a QR code for it, allowing others to scan and save your contact details instantly.
The platform allows you to display contact information, social media links, services, and products all in one shareable link. Optional features include appointment scheduling, WhatsApp-based storefronts, media galleries, and custom design options.
Trump went back to the theme later in his remarks, as he mused that he could beat up former Vice President Joe Biden — who he referred to as “Sleepy Joe.”
Earlier this year, Biden, who is considering a 2020 presidential bid, said he would have “beat the hell” out of Trump when they were younger.
Trump said he could take Biden — and in quicker fashion than Gianforte assaulted Jacobs.
“He’d be down faster than Greg would take him down,” Trump said of the former vice president.
Trump’s comments also came against the backdrop of his argument that the political left is fomenting mobs.
“Democrats produce mobs, Republicans produce jobs,” he said at one point.
Trump was here, in one of the state’s few liberal bastions, to campaign for Republican Senate nominee Matt Rosendale, who is trying to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. As he has in two previous visits to the state this year, Trump slammed Tester for opposing parts of his agenda and for helping sink the nomination of Trump’s doctor, Ronny Jackson, to be Veterans Affairs secretary.
That race is one of the most tightly contested as Republicans try to hold onto their majority — and possibly expand it — in the Senate, and Trump is in the midst of a whirlwind tour of competitive House and Senate races across the country.
Trump said the final phases of the campaign would be determined in part by a caravan of Honduran migrants trying to make it through Mexico to the United States.
He praised the Mexican government for taking steps to try to stop the caravan but said he would deploy force if he has to.
“I’m willing to send the military to defend our southern border if necessary,” he said, adding that Democrats are wrong if they think immigration is an issue that will help them in the mid-terms. “That’s our issue,” he said.
“Kavanaugh, the caravan, law and order, and common sense … it’s going to be an election of those things,” he said, referring to just-confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.