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Trump's praise for Greg Gianforte, a Republican member of the
U.S. House of Representatives who pleaded guilty to an assault
charge for the incident involving the reporter, coincides with
an international outcry over the disappearance of Saudi
journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
"Any guy that can do a body-slam, he's my guy," Trump told a
political rally in Missoula, Montana on Thursday night,
referring to Gianforte.
Trump has been holding frequent rallies before the Nov. 6 U.S.
congressional elections in which Trump's fellow Republicans seek
to retain control of the House and Senate.
Gianforte body-slammed Ben Jacobs, a correspondent for Britain's
Guardian newspaper, in May 2017, the day before a special
election to fill Montana's only House seat. Gianforte, who is
running for re-election, pleaded guilty.
On Friday, asked whether he regretted praising Gianforte amid
the Khashoggi controversy, Trump said he did not.
"That was a different league, a different world ... Greg is a
tremendous person. He's a tough cookie," Trump told reporters.
Trump drew rebukes from several lawmakers including U.S.
Senators Jeff Flake, a Republican, and Patrick Leahy, a
Democrat, as well as Gianforte's Democratic opponent Kathleen
Williams, and from the spokeswoman for the United Kingdom's
prime minister.
"In dictatorships, they don't have freedom of speech. They do
attack reporters. They do body-slam reporters. We should not be
encouraging that in the United States. We should be the beacon
of freedom," Leahy told CNN, and called Trump's comments
"terrible" and "irresponsible."
Theresa May's spokeswoman told reporters on Friday: "He
obviously made comments at a political rally, and those are for
him. But more generally we would always say that any violence or
intimidation against a journalist is completely unacceptable."
Trump has frequently criticized journalists, calling the news
media the "enemy of the American people" and deriding some news
organizations as "fake news."
Olivier Knox, president of the White House Correspondents'
Association, accused Trump of "cheerleading for a violent act
targeting a free and independent news media" in a statement.
But some dismissed the criticism.
Rep. Steve Scalise, a House Republican leader and a victim of a
shooting last year, said in a tweet: "President Trump was
clearly ribbing Congressman Gianforte for last year's incident
... He was not encouraging his supporters to engage in attacks."
(Reporting by Makini Brice; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey
in Washington and William James in London; Editing by Will
Dunham and James Dalgleish)
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