Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields is discussing her “jarring” physical altercation with Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s campaign manager, saying she was “shaken” by the incident.
Fields wrote in a piece published Thursday that she was trying to ask Trump a question about affirmative action during a press conference earlier in the week when she was almost pulled to the ground.
{mosads}”Trump acknowledged the question, but before he could answer I was jolted backwards,” she wrote.
“Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down. I almost fell to the ground, but was able to maintain my balance. Nonetheless, I was shaken.”
The Washington Post’s Ben Terris told Fields that Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, pulled her. Fields said Lewandowski would “be out of line” if he had taken these actions, even if Trump was done taking questions.
“Campaign managers aren’t supposed to try to forcefully throw reporters to the ground, no matter the circumstance,” she wrote.
“But what made this especially jarring is that there was no hint Trump was done taking questions. No one was pushing him to get away. He seemed to have been happily answering queries from my fellow reporters just a moment before.”
The incident has been widely reported, and Fields said she hopes to “get back to reporting the news, not being a part of it.”
The Daily Beast called out Breitbart News for responding to the incident with only a “mild rebuke in a vague statement,” calling the outlet “Trump-friendly.”
Breitbart said in a statement it released that it was “obviously unacceptable” for someone to have made physical contact with the reporter.
“What Michelle has told us directly is that someone ‘grabbed her arm’ and while she did not see who it was, Ben Terris of The Washington Post told her that it was Corey Lewandowski. If that’s the case, Corey owes Michelle an immediate apology,” said the Breitbart statement, issued under the name of Larry Solov, the outlet’s CEO and president.