Trump’s praise for criminal act earns rebuke

MISSOULA, Mont. — President Donald Trump praised a GOP congressman for body-slamming a reporter last year, calling the lawmaker a “tough cookie” and saying he thinks it helped him win election in Montana.

At a rally in Missoula on Thursday, Trump lauded Rep. Greg Gianforte, who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault for an attack on Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs. The attack came a day before Gianforte won a 2017 special election to serve the remaining 18 months in the House term vacated by now-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

“Any guy that can do a body slam — he’s my kind of guy,” Trump said to cheers and laughter from the crowd.

Trump’s remarks came amid a furor over the apparent assassination of a Washington Post columnist inside a Saudi consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago.

The White House Correspondents’ Association chided Trump for his praise of Gianforte, saying, “All Americans should recoil from the president’s praise for a violent assault on a reporter doing his Constitutionally protected job.”

“This amounts to the celebration of a crime by someone sworn to uphold our laws and an attack on the First Amendment by someone who has solemnly pledged to defend it,” said the group’s president, Olivier Knox.

Trump said he was in Rome when he heard about Gianforte’s assault.

“And I said, ‘Oh, this is terrible. He’s going to lose the election,’” Trump recalled. “And then I said, ‘Well, wait a minute. I know Montana pretty well. I think it might help him.’ And it did.”

Gianforte pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge in June 2017. He paid a $385 fine and completed 40 hours of community service and 20 hours of anger-management counseling. He also donated $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists.