Trump On Lewandowski Grabbing Protester: Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes, He Didn’t Touch Him
A morning after another protester was sucker-punched and beaten at on of his rallies and campaign manager Corey Lewandowski manhandled another person, Republican Presidential candidate and former steak salesman Donald Trump appeared on ABC’s This Week. Well, appeared is kinda misnomer, since he actually called into the show. (Once again, why are the Sunday shows letting him phone in his interviews?)
Anyway, for the first time since Lewandowski assaulted ex-Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields at a press conference nearly two weeks ago, Trump was actually asked about his campaign manager’s thuggish actions. In this case, host George Stephanopoulos pressed Trump a bit on Lewandowski being caught on video grabbing a protester by the collar and yanking him at a Saturday night rally in Tucson, Arizona.
Of course, since Trump has become so accustomed to lying and the mainstream media letting him get away with it, he just denied that Lewandowski touched anyone at all, despite visual proof to the contrary. He also commended him for having “spirit” for getting in the middle of the crowd to engage protesters, which actually contradicts Trump’s assertion that Lewandowski didn’t touch anyone.
From the transcript, courtesy of ABC News:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, you also — we also have seen that video there of your campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who does appear in that video to grab the collar of the protester. Also your j your private security.
Why — why was your campaign manager out in the crowd engaging protesters?
This is the second incident…
TRUMP: Well, you know what…
STEPHANOPOULOS: — in about a month.
TRUMP: — because security at the arena, the police were a little bit lax. And he had signs — they had signs up in that area that were horrendous, that I cannot say what they said on the sign. But the ultimate word — and it was all over the camera — and, frankly, the television cameras can’t take it and they can’t do anything about it. And I will give him credit, spirited.
Now, he didn’t touch — he wasn’t…
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, the video does show…
TRUMP: — (INAUDIBLE) that was somebody else…
STEPHANOPOULOS: — that he touched and your private sector (INAUDIBLE)…
TRUMP: Well, that was somebody else pulling them.
STEPHANOPOULOS: — grabbed the (INAUDIBLE).
TRUMP: I mean I get — I give him credit for having spirit. He wanted them to take down those horrible profanity-laced signs.
OK. Now, just for reference sake, here is video of what actually happened. As clear as day, Lewandowski is the person grabbing the young man by the collar and yanking him back:
Here is Donald Trump’s campaign manager in the Tucson crowd grabbing the collar of a protester. pic.twitter.com/JZ9RntWlHY
— Jacqueline Alemany (@JaxAlemany) March 19, 2016
The sad thing is that this is the very first time Trump was asked about Lewandowski’s abhorrent behavior during a scheduled news interview, despite the fact that the campaign manager is facing a criminal complaint for grabbing Fields and there are reports of him harassing female employees. (In the spin room after the last debate, a couple of reporters tried to question Trump about the Fields incident, with Trump denying anything happened.) Worse, Stephanopoulos didn’t even bring any of that up, instead just asking about the most recent event and then quickly moving on. (It was made worse that this was a phone interview, making it difficult for the host to control the discussion — seriously, STOP letting him phone in!)
Ryan Lizza said it best on Sunday morning regarding the way the mainstream media is bound to handle this latest incident:
When someone does something caught on video & lies about it, it’s a story about lying not about how 2 sides disagree about what happened.
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) March 20, 2016
Reporting @CLewandowski_ grabbing protester as a “he said/she said” event sums up everything wrong with how press covers Trump.
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) March 20, 2016
Indeed. Indeed.
