screengrab from https://youtu.be/QwiaCUUScqc

Continuing a nearly hyperactive series of campaign rallies, President Trump headlined a rally in Missoula, Montana, for Matt Rosendale who is closing on Jon Tester, the noted slayer of cattle and hogs, in the Montana Senate race.

Another view from the press pit as the crowds start to file into Minuteman Aviation for @POTUS 3rd visit to Montana in the last 3 months#trumpinmissoula #Trump pic.twitter.com/mSmqaVXczi

— Darren Winberg (@darrenNBCMT) October 18, 2018

The rally was not without controversy. Some inadvertent:

Former state GOP official warns Trump protesters: Montana is an "open carry state" https://t.co/AcLrp8yaZv

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 18, 2018

And some clearly calculated:

Tonight the Trump campaign/WH turned up the music so loud the press risers were vibrating. Nearly impossible to do live TV. I suppose the WH loves those kinds of shenanigans. But I wonder if it’s a security concern for USSS or local law enforcement. They can’t hear either.

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 19, 2018

Here’s how loud the “technicians” at the Trump rally in Montana were playing the music after the event. They turned it up right before our live shot with ⁦@CNNTonight⁩ https://t.co/f0TZzv5AGv

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 19, 2018

Acosta clearly wasn’t taking it all that well, when Melania Trump’s former director of operations, Justin Caporale, RTed him with the de rigueur “Dear Diary” preface–it is amazing how many of Acosta’s tweets sound exactly what you’d find in an anxiety-ridden teenage girl with an inferiority complex–

Acosta sent him a DM:

.@justincap_ allowed me to log into his account and view the message. Here's a screenshot I took pic.twitter.com/r4F6EpbQAH

— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) October 19, 2018

And there was this epic statement by Trump which should pass any fact check:

“Democrats produce mobs and Republicans produce jobs” –rallying in Montana, President Trump unveils his latest slogan pic.twitter.com/RyXwgKMNW1

— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) October 19, 2018

But Montana is the home of Greg Gianforte who is most famous for “body-slamming” Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs during the 2017 special election:

https://youtu.be/gvnMJLKC0Vs

I don’t know if this was technically a “body slam,” but Gianforte definitely got 2-points for a takedown. Trump went to the Gianforte comparison twice:

“He’d be down faster than Greg would take him down.”

Trump says he could take down “sleepy Joe Biden” in a fight, referencing Montana Rep. Gianforte’s assault of a Guardian reporter pic.twitter.com/IabdW714jY

— Bloomberg QuickTake (@QuickTake) October 19, 2018

But the comment that has the media going full-metal Elizabeth Warren, complete with warpaint and tomahawk-chop, is this:

Via the New York Times:

President Trump praised a Republican candidate’s assault last year on a reporter and fumed over his Democratic opponents here on Thursday night in a freewheeling rally meant to mobilize his base’s support in the coming midterm elections.

In urging the crowd to vote for Representative Greg Gianforte, who is running for re-election and who was sentenced to anger management classes and community service for assaulting a reporter last spring, Mr. Trump jokingly warned the crowd to “never wrestle him.”

“I had heard he body-slammed a reporter,” Mr. Trump said, noting that he was initially concerned that Mr. Gianforte would lose in a special election last May. “I said, ‘Wait a minute. I know Montana pretty well; I think it might help him.’ And it did.”

“Anybody that can do a body-slam,” the president added, “that’s my kind of guy.”

Predictably, when one of their own is mocked, the media responded:

Omg Trump on Gianforte: "By the way, never wrestle him."

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) October 19, 2018

New statement from the Guardian on Trump’s remarks tonight praising Gianforte’s assault —> pic.twitter.com/ZAMUpcII4B

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) October 19, 2018

Guardian US editor John Mulholland: The president "applauded the assault on an American journalist … To celebrate an attack on a journalist who was simply doing his job is an attack on the first amendment by someone who has taken an oath to defend it." https://t.co/W1wMgUaBf2

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 19, 2018

I really wish someone would show me where a reporter getting a wrestled to the ground by a private citizen is an affront to the First Amendment.

The disturbing part of Trump’s jokes about Gianforte was the effect on the crowd. I saw one young man in the crowd making body slam gestures. He looked at me and ran his thumb across his throat. I talked to him after the rally was over. He couldn’t stop laughing.

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 19, 2018

Trump led his rally crowd in cheering Montana Rep. Greg Gianforte for "body-slamming" a reporter https://t.co/yuFoqLSuzx

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) October 19, 2018

Trump on Gianforte's assault of @Bencjacobs — "I think it might help him, and it did."

Big cheers in crowd as Trump mentions a reporter getting assaulted. Wow.

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) October 19, 2018

Look at these people, standing behind Trump, clapping and laughing, as he talks about how awesome it was when Montana Senator Greg Gianforte bodyslammed a journalist for doing his job.

You know who this reminds me of?

David Koresh at Waco.#fridayfeeling #FridayMotivation https://t.co/r5UReIx0Rw

— Holly Figueroa O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) October 19, 2018

This is shocking and chilling, especially in light of the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi: Trump has praised Congressman Greg Gianforte for his violent assault on a Guardian reporter: https://t.co/k6KcqTW11d

— Katharine Viner (@KathViner) October 19, 2018

To say this is overwrought is to exaggerate. The number of attacks on journalists at the rally was zero. The number of attacks on journalists after the rally was also zero. Acosta felt so unafraid that he interviewed, or tried to interview, the people who were laughing at him. The statement by the Guardian’s US editor is as bizarre as it is disgusting. He’s essentially saying that no dictatorship, anywhere, killed journalists who angered them before Trump ran for office.

I suppose this is the place where I’m supposed to reflect on how totally wrong this is and how we are all so much better than this and bewail what Trump has done to the GOP. F*** that noise. (Full disclosure, I had and have zero sympathy for Jacobs and this has nothing to do with Trump; if any candidate, of either party, wants my list of reporters who could benefit from an ass whipping, please contact me). For the past two years, the media has demonstrated what any observer of politics has known since the late 1980s, that they are simply an adjunct to the Democrat party serving as its propaganda arm. Laughing at them, mocking them, ridiculing them is completely legitimate. And if they don’t like it, well, screw them if they can’t take a joke.

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