Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 07:21 pm
NBC News’ Katy Tur had to be protected by the Secret Service after Donald Trump called her out, pointing his finger at her and “launching a personal attack as millions of Americans watched at home.”
“What a lie it was,” Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said, referring to her claim that he had left the stage abruptly at another rally. “What a lie. Katy Tur. What a lie it was. Third. Rate. Reporter. Remember that.”
Writing in Marie Claire about this experience, the reporter continued, “The crowd’s boos ricocheted off the iron hull of the USS Yorktown.”
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Calling this Trump attack “scary”, Tur wrote, “It’s unlikely, however, that any of Trump’s future attacks will be as scary as what happened in Mount Pleasant, where the crowd, feeding off Trump, seemed to turn on me like a large animal, angry and unchained.
“It wasn’t until hours later, when Secret Service took the extraordinary step of walking me to my car, that the incident sank in.”
When people claim that Donald Trump’s insults – not even a call to violence – don’t mean anything, they are rugsweeping the obvious signs of danger. Here’s what Tur reports she gets daily on social media, “The wave of insults, harassment, and threats, via various social-media feeds, hasn’t stopped since. Many of the attacks are unprintable.”
Including a death threat:
“MAYBE A FEW JOURNALISTS DO NEED TO BE WHACKED,” tweeted someone with the handle GuyScott33, two weeks after Trump lashed out. “MAYBE THEN THEYD STOP BEI[N]G BIASED HACKS. KILL EM ALL STARTING W/ KATY TUR.”
There’s more here.
That Donald Trump is aiming his vitriolic bullying hate at the press is strange enough. That his hate incites death threats is clear.
So there’s already a connection here.
Now add in his call to assassinate Hillary Clinton, and it’s obvious that Donald Trump is either a reckless, dangerous person who can’t control himself or he knows exactly what he’s doing and he is continuing to do it because he wants to create a culture of fear. This is political terrorism – using fear and intimidation to push a political agenda.
And no, actual violence doesn’t need to be used in political terrorism. The agenda can be achieved by fear alone.
Katy Tur says she’s still going for her live shots and she’s on the trail, Trump’s attacks and the threats of his cult aren’t going to stop her.
This is what the press corp covering Trump is going through. It’s not normal. It’s not acceptable.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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