Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump defended his campaign manager as a “very decent man” Tuesday, hours after the staffer was charged with battery in Florida for allegedly grabbing a reporter and yanking her away from Trump.
Corey Lewandowski, 42, faces one misdemeanor count of battery as a result of the March 8 incident. He voluntarily went to police headquarters in Jupiter, Fla., and signed paperwork that ordered him to appear in court on May 4.
The police also released a new video of the event, taken from the security cameras at Trump’s own golf course. It directly contradicted what Trump and Lewandowski had both said about the incident in the past.
They had asserted that Lewandowski never touched the reporter, Michelle Fields.
In the video, he does — grabbing her hard enough to pull her backwards.
Who do you believe? Trump or your own two eyes?
Ms Fields, the reporter in question, has stuck to her story and has since voluntarily left Breitbart, mainly because the organization failed to back her over Trump’s campaign manager.
To date, Trump denied there was a video. When one was produced, the story changed. Trump simply will not accept responsibility. Life everything else, it is always someone else’s fault.
Trump needs to have a come to Jesus meeting with his campaign manager and be done with it. Corey Lewandowski acted inappropriately.
Big deal. She was virtually in the face of and touching a USSS protectee. I heard something today about a Secret Service agent admitting that she was told twice to back off from violating their protective circle and did not obey. It should have been the USSS who moved her away, but maybe they are overly cautious after the last incident with a pushy and mouthy press photographer. Also heard that this gal was involved in a similar complaint against the NYPD during coverage of some leftwinger demonstrations in NYC. For the love of Mike, if you want to play in the Big Leagues, quit moaning and groaning if you get shoved aside once in awhile. It can happen to anybody who steps over the line, especially in an era of terrorism. (And murder threats, of which Trump reportedly has many.)
The woman’s arm was bruised. You could see her being manhandled. Would you like it if someone treated your wife or daughter that way?
I didn’t see her doing anything everyone else wasn’t doing.
Much as I regard Trump as an extremely dangerous ignoramus (he wouldn’t be dangerous if he weren’t having some success in this quest for the GOP nomination), I must say that I’ve felt a little sympathy for him the past couple of days. The film being widely shown on the networks doesn’t appear to show much other than a crowd with people pressing around the candidate and the Campaign Manager trying to interpose between the reporter and the candidate. People are getting jostled, but, at least in this clip, you don’t see Lewandowski throw her to the ground, which is what was reported. This seems pretty hyped up. Perhaps there’s more a few seconds later that isn’t shown, but the visual images don’t strike me as anything criminal.
The other incident – the Wivesgate exchanges – seem to be reported on the networks as Trump just spontaneously dissing Mrs. Cruz. Trump should have hit the lure, but the reporting seems uniformly to ignore that Trump’s actions were in response to the posting of naked images of Mrs. Trump. Wolve quite properly observed that Cruz should have reprimanded and disowned the PAC that did that. Trump should have let it go. But it wasn’t as though Trump created this out of thin air.
Trump can’t let anything go unless he is the perpetrator.
Trump trashed the reporter’s reputation. The reporter did what she had to do to reclaim her reputation and future job prospects by establishing the truth through legal means.
Maybe more reporters ought to have their reputations trashed. It might bring them back to earth.
Trump lied about it at first, saying it did not happen. Now he’s saying that she was threatening him. If she were threatening him, the Secret Service would have intervened. Trump is a liar and a coward and totally unfit for any public office.
After alleged groping, teen Trump protester pepper-sprayed by Trump supporter outside Wisc. rally
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/03/30/after-alleged-groping-teen-trump-protester-pepper-sprayed-by-trump-supporter-outside-wisc-rally/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_trumpprotester-730am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
The Trump scum are attacking little girls.
I haven’t gotten past the picture of his son with some beautiful tiger….dead. bounty.
I am sure much worse has happened over the years. We just weren’t under constant video surveillance, and everyone wasn’t armed with a high-res video camera.
Starry…please look up “alleged”…and I am referring to the “groping”. What has been established is the 15yo threw a punch, and the target of the physical attack pepper-sprayed her.
This could be real, or it could have been staged. Lot’s of chicanery going on.
Oh yeah? How does one feel intimidated by a 15 year old girl?
Where is the scumbag who sprayed her? He should come forward and defend himself if he felt so threatened by a little girl. Typical Trump supporter. They pick on little girls and anyone weaker than they.
Last month, I was at a local laser tag place, and watched a 15-16 yearold girl kick the living crap out of a kids mother…a healthy adult. A 15 yearold girl can put a serious hurting on an old man too. Not saying this was the case, but if a teenager physically assaults an adult male, pepper spray is a reasonable response. Better than throwing a punch back, as this could be seen as a disproportionate response.
As for the person who sprayed the protester, he should come forward. Anytime a person feels threatened enough to use force (lethal or otherwise), they should immediately contact law enforcement. In hiding, the person relinquishes any chance at claiming they were the victim, were in fear of sustaining injury, and were justified in using force.
I watched it again. Nowhere does she identify herself as a 15-year old. She appears to be much older, and clearly is the aggressor in manner and deportment. She threw a punch. She got sprayed.
@Steve Thomas
Perhaps you got beat up by a girl when you were a kid, I don’t know, but I don’t find teenage girls intimidating like you apparently do.
Starry, as a person who dealt with that age for years and years, they can be pretty intimidating, esp the mean girls.
For starters, hair flies all over the place. They scratch, kick, bite, tear out hair, scream like banshees.
I didnt see the video so I am not in the fight other than to say don’t be too quick to dismiss the nastiness in a teen age girl.
@Steve, @Starry,
I went and watched. There is no side to take. Everyone was acting like a sub-human. How do you choose sides between horrible behavior#1 and horrible behavior #2.
They all sicken me.
As for the girl’s age…who knows. 12 year olds now look like grown women.
All of them were acting 10, including the older man.
@Starryflights
Starry,
In the words of Daryl Hammond’s impression of Sean Connery, on SNL: “Suck It”
http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2006/AreUSGirlsBecomingMoreViolent.aspx
You know NOTHING!. Back in Boston, back in the day, a “teen” boy or girl wouldn’t have even considered getting in an adult’s face. But Soy-fed Mangina’s like you and the 3rd-wave feminists convinced them, especially the girls, that they could do or say anything they wanted, and suffer no personal consequences. If I lipped off, or worse, physically assaulted an adult, and they beat the crap out of me, there wasn’t any running to the PD or a “school resource officer” for help. Their response would have been “You should’a kept your mouth shut”, or “whadda ya expect, putting your hands on an adult. I’d crack ya too”.
You also know absolutely NOTHING about use of force law. How many hours of instruction have you had? My bet is zero. I’ve had about 60 hours in the last 10 years. Plus, the only reason you know she was a “teen”, is the news story said so.
The whole thing looked staged to me. I’ve been pepper-sprayed a couple of times in training classes. I know what it looks like when someone expects to be sprayed. She looked like she expected it. Those who don’t expect it, react with shock. She didn’t.
AND…the spray looks like a trainer-unit…not the real thing. The real thing is either clear, or has a purple or red dye. Not that brown crap. The brown crap is for training, to show where you sprayed.
Funny how there was a convenient camera, getting just the right angle, focused only on her. She throws a punch, but we don’t see any connection…and a hand sprays her. She doesn’t react like any of the grown men I’ve seen juiced with real OC. She just closes her eyes, and walks away. No surprise. No shock. No screaming….
Fields is lying. You can tell by the color of the “bruises” which looked to be at least a week old.
Different people bruised differently.
What would her motive me to lie? I can see the video.
@Emma
Agree. This is a political hit job by a troubled woman. The story is still developing but it is now also being reported that Fields has done this before: claiming that she was assulted at a Students for Liberty event, accused Senator Allan West of sexually assaulting her, charged NYPD with brutality during occupy Wall Street, and even claimed the Leonardo DiCaprio manhandled her. It is also being reported that she has a book that is about to be released and that this was a publicity stunt that went wrong as she was trying to get Trump to push her off. Importantly it is also being reported that she went broke throught the Secret Service cordon around him to get to Trump.
Please put up the resources for your supposition.
Blaming the victim is a Trump thing. Are all the other people who have claims against the campaign manager trying to do a publicity stunt?
Fields was a Breitbart journalist and Trump supporter until the incident. She wouldn’t lie and she didn’t.
Trump and Lewandowsky are the liars. Both denied anything happened initially, now they claim she threatened him
There are indications that the Breitbart company is backing Cruz, which isn’t surprising. And Google “stages of bruising” or something similar. Any mom of an active kid knows this–but some of us have other reasons why we would know this professionally. Or you could just decide to be willfully obtuse no matter what evidence is right in front of your face.@Starry flights