Montana is holding a special House election today, with Republican Greg Gianforte currently leading in polls. However, the evening before the election, Gianforte decided to unleash his rage on a reporter, Ben Jacobs from The Guardian, by body slamming the man to the ground when he dared ask a question about the AHCA. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Transcript of the above video:
Farron:
Today, Montana is holding a special election to fill a congressional seat that was held by republicans. The republican candidate, Greg Gianforte, had a six point lead in the latest poll, but internal GOP polls showed that gap closing, but it looked pretty clear, as about noon yesterday, that Gianforte was going to pull out a very narrow victory against his democratic opponent, Rob Quist. That is, until this happened.
Ben Jacobs:
…the CBO score, because you were waiting to make your decision about healthcare until you saw the bill and it just game out, and-
Greg Gianforte:
We’ll talk to you about that later.
Ben Jacobs:
Yeah, but there’s not going to be time, I’m just curious-
Greg Gianforte:
Okay, speak with Shane please. I’m sick and tired of you guys.
Ben Jacobs:
[inaudible 00:00:44].
Greg Gianforte:
The last guy that came in here, you did the same thing. Get the hell out of here.
Ben Jacobs:
[inaudible 00:00:49].
Greg Gianforte:
Get the hell out of here. The last guy did the same thing. Are you with The Guardian?
Ben Jacobs:
Yes, and you just broke my glasses.
Greg Gianforte:
The last guy did the same damned thing.
Ben Jacobs:
You just body slammed me and broke my glasses.
Greg Gianforte:
Get the hell out of here.
Ben Jacobs:
You’d like me to get the hell out of here, I’d also like to call the police. Can I get you guys’ names?
?:
Hey, you’ve got to leave.
Ben Jacobs:
He just body slammed me.
?:
You’ve got to leave.
Farron:
Now, you just heard the audio, so let me explain what happened. Ben Jacobs, a reporter from The Guardian approached Gianforte and said, “Hey, what are your thoughts on this piece of healthcare legislation, Trumpcare, the American Healthcare Act, what are thoughts on that?” Gianforte suddenly flew off the handle and body slammed Ben Jacobs, a reporter, to the ground, for asking a question about healthcare.
Gianforte, as of this particular moment, has not apologized for this event. He has, however, been charged with assault, and the other witnesses who confirmed that this happened, along with the audio that confirmed what happened, the other witnesses were from Fox News. They corroborated this story from Ben Jacobs. They said, “Yes, absolutely.” In fact, the Fox News witnesses said it was actually worse than what Ben Jacobs had described.
When you even have the people at Fox News, who are unable to deny it, even though none of them interviewed the witnesses this morning on Fox News, they went many, many hours talking about it but never once talked to their own people who were there, they instead tried to defend Gianforte. That’s who saw this and who corroborated it. Fox News. This wasn’t a lie. This wasn’t made up by the reporter, you can hear in the audio exactly how he approached him. He wasn’t hostile, he wasn’t attempting to start a fight, but Gianforte went completely psycho on him and body slammed him to the ground.
Here’s the problem. This is what has become of America today. Donald Trump laid the groundwork for this when he had Lewandowski rough up a reporter. We have had several reporters in just the last month get beaten, get arrested, get charged with things that are completely phony. We are actively, as a country, being hostile to investigative reporters and journalists. This is what Donald Trump wants. This is a man who, let’s not forget, toyed around with the idea of having his FBI round up reporters and throw them in prison, and Gianforte, is the result of that. His antagonistic ways towards these reporters who simply asked him a question, shows how far we’ve fallen in the United States.
It’s even more ironic, considering the fact that Gianforte is allegedly a man of God. And I say that because this is also relevant to the story, especially in the event that Gianforte wins today. He is a man whose family’s foundation, because yes, he’s wealthy enough to have a foundation, gave tons of money to that creationist museum. The Ken Ham museum. They donated the dinosaurs for the exhibits. You know, those dinosaurs who Greg Gianforte believes were on Noah’s ark. He believes that. He also believes, in accordance with the bible, according to him, that people shouldn’t retire, because Noah built that arc, at like age 600. So people need to work until they’re at least 600, because that’s what it says in the bible.
This is a man who again, up until a few days ago, had a six point advantage over his democratic opponent. Now, we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen in this special election, but it will tell us a lot about America today. If the voters still go to the poll and say, “I’m perfectly fine with this psychopath body slamming a man to the ground for asking him a question,” then that is bad news for American journalism. It means they’re no longer safe. Even though their profession is specifically mentioned in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, they’re not safe. They are no longer protected, that first amendment, may as well not even exist. But if Gianforte is defeated, it will show this country, it will show Donald Trump that the American public is not going to stand by while this administration and Republicans all over this country continue to assault both verbally and physically investigative reporters who are our last means of getting actual truth in this country.
