A female reporter said she was “shaken” after the campaign manager for Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump allegedly grabbed her by the arm and almost pulled her to the floor during a press conference this week.
Advertisement
The incident occurred late Tuesday after Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields, who was walking next to Trump as he exited a press conference, pointed a tape recorder in his direction and asked about his opinion on affirmative action.
Fields wrote that Ben Terris, a reporter for The Washington Post, “immediately remarked” it was Lewandowski who had forcibly grabbed her arm.
According to the Beast, Lewandowski did offer Boyle an explanation for his manhandling of Fields: He simply “didn’t recognize her as a Breitbart reporter, instead mistaking her for an adversarial member of the mainstream media”. A Politico report suggests that the campaign manager “nearly” brought the Breitbart News report “down to the ground” during the incident.
Weinstein says the incident happened when Fields tried to ask Trump a tough question.
Lewandowski threatened to revoke CNN reporter Noah Gray’s press privileges back in November when Gray attempted to leave the “press pen” to report on a skirmish in the crowd. But what made this especially jarring is that there was no hint Trump was done taking questions.
“It’s obviously unacceptable that someone crossed a line and made physical contact with our reporter”.
While Fields did not comment for the Beast’s story, Breitbart, to its credit, published her own account of the event late Wednesday night. No one was pushing him to get away.
“Trump acknowledged the question, but before he could answer I was jolted backwards”.
Daily Caller senior editor Jaime Weinstein, Fields’s boyfriend, tweeted out his outrage.
Several top managers at Breitbart, a conservative news and opinion site that’s been broadly supportive of Trump this election cycle, have declined to speak out, including executive chairman Stephen Bannon, an influential conservative with close ties to Trump, and editor-in-chief Alex Marlow. Fields is a reporter for Breitbart. Trump has most likely been featured in more TV interviews than any other candidate and often hosts lengthy press conferences while on the campaign trail.
Advertisement
“We have not heard from Lewandowski or the Trump campaign since news of this broke”, said Bardella.
