The incident happened when Gianforte was running for Congress. A misdemeanor assault charge is something that most political candidates would like forgotten. That could be the case for Rep. Greg Gianforte, a Republican running for re-election in Montana, who first garnered national headlines in May 2017 when he allegedly body-slammed a reporter. The controversial move was appealing to President Donald Trump, apparently. He praised Gianforte at a rally on Thursday, saying, "Any guy who can do a body slam, he is my type!" Here is a review of the incident in question and the legal actions that followed. The initial incident Reporter Ben Jacobs of The Guardian said he approached Gianforte, a former technology executive, at a meet-and-greet event at the candidate's office in Bozeman, Montana. Jacobs allegedly went up to Gianforte to get his opinion on the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of the American Health Care Act as he was preparing for a television interview. All of a sudden, Gianforte "seemed to just snap," Jacobs said. "He grabbed my recorder, and next thing I knew, I'd gone from being vertical to horizontal on the floor," he told "GMA" shortly after the incident. "He was on top of me and wailing on me," Jacobs added. The Guardian posted an audio recording of the encounter. Gianforte can be heard saying, "We'll talk to you about that later" after Jacobs asks a question. Jacobs asks again and Gianforte refers him to a spokesman. A scuffle ensues. "I'm sick and tired of you guys," Gianforte says. "The last guy who came in here ... did the same thing. Get the hell out of here." After the alleged incident, Jacobs wrote on Twitter, "Greg Gianforte just body slammed me and broke my glasses." Legal repercussions Gianforte was charged with misdemeanor assault, according to the Gallatin County Sheriff's Office. "Following multiple interviews and an investigation by the Gallatin County Sheriff's Office, it was determined there was probable cause to issue a citation to Greg Gianforte for misdemeanor assault," the sheriff's office said in a statement on its website on May 24, 2017. The statement added that the "nature of the injuries did not meet the statutory elements of felony assault." The Associated Press reported that Gianforte pleaded guilty in June 2017, paid a $385 fine, completed 40 hours of community service, 20 hours of anger management training, wrote an apology letter and donated $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists. ABC News' Meridith McGraw, Morgan Winsor, and Adam Kelsey contributed to this report.<doc-sep>MISSOULA, Mont. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Thursday heaped praise on a U.S. congressman from Montana who body-slammed a reporter during a campaign for a special election in 2017. Trump, who has called the media the enemy of the American people and regularly derides journalists as “fake news,” made his latest remarks during a campaign rally in Montana. Representative Greg Gianforte, who made brief remarks at the rally with Trump, was ordered to perform community service as part of his sentence for attacking Ben Jacobs, a correspondent for Britain’s Guardian newspaper, on May 24, 2017, the day before a special election to fill Montana’s sole congressional seat. “Any guy that can do a body-slam ... is my guy,” Trump told supporters at the rally, adding that he was concerned at first that the incident would jeopardize Gianforte’s campaign. “I said: ‘Oh, this is terrible, he’s going to lose the election.’ Then I said: ‘Well, wait a minute, I know Montana pretty well, I think it might help him,’ and it did,” Trump said. Gianforte, who won the election, pleaded guilty to assaulting a reporter. Trump is on a three-state tour in the western part of the United States advocating for Republican candidates who are running for election in November with the hope of keeping control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in Republican hands.<doc-sep>WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump praised a Republican congressman who body slammed a reporter last year, saying the lawmaker was "my guy." Trump, speaking at a rally in Montana, said Rep. Greg Gianforte, who pleaded guilty to assaulting a reporter who asked him a question, was a good guy. "Greg is smart and, by the way, never wrestle him," the president said, motioning as though he was slamming someone to the ground. "Any guy that can do a body slam — he's my guy." He added Gianforte was a "great guy" and a "tough cookie." In May 2017, Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs said Gianforte "body slammed" him for asking a question during an event. Gianforte went on to win Montana's only U.S. House seat despite the misdemeanor charge and two Montana papers — the Missoulian and the Billings Gazette — rescinding their endorsements. Gianforte's campaign initially released a statement claiming Jacobs had "aggressively shoved a recorder in Greg's face" and instigated the attack. Gianforte later pleaded guilty to an assault charge and apologized for the incident, pledging a $50,000 donation to the Committee to Protect Journalists. More:Trump claims Democrats wanted caravan, ups immigration rhetoric ahead of western swing More:Trump stops rally to say hurricanes helped prove his hair is real Gianforte is in a battle against Democrat and former state legislator Kathleen Williams in next month's election. Guardian Editor John Mulholland denounced the president's praise for the assault as an attack on the First Amendment. "The President of the United States tonight applauded the assault on an American journalist who works for the Guardian," he said in a statement given to CNN. "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." Mulholland continued, saying the rhetoric was dangerous, especially given the disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who is believed to have been killed in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. Mulholland said this "runs the risk of inviting other assaults on journalists both here and across the world where they often face far greater threats. We hope decent people will denounce these comments and that the president will see fit to apologize for them.” More:Mont. Republican Greg Gianforte apologizes for assaulting Guardian reporter More:Greg Gianforte's assault on a journalist is an assault on all Americans More:Gianforte, charged with assaulting reporter, wins House seat in Montana special election During the rally, Trump talked about learning of the assault and said he initially worried Gianforte would lose his election last year. "I said, 'Oh, this is terrible. He's going to lose the election,"' Trump told the crowd. "Then I said, 'Well, wait a minute. I know Montana pretty well. I think it might help him and it did.'" Throughout his rally, the president made several remarks about Gianforte's attack on Jacobs. He cited the incident when he mentioned comments by former Vice President Joe Biden, who said that if he'd known Trump in high school he would have "beat the hell out of" him. The president challenged Biden during the rally, saying "He'd be down faster than Greg would take him down. He'd be down so fast. Faster than Greg. I'd have to go very fast. I'd have to immediately connect." Contributing: The Associated Press, David Jackson.<doc-sep>MISSOULA, Mont. — 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.” Mr. Trump made no mention at the rally of Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist and columnist for The Washington Post, who disappeared this month after visiting the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. United States intelligence officials say Mr. Khashoggi was most likely killed by Saudi officials.<doc-sep>
"No, no. Not at all," Trump responded when asked if he regretted his comments at a campaign rally the previous night. ADVERTISEMENT The president said Friday that Gianforte's assault of a reporter last year was in "a different world" and "a different league" than what happened to Khashoggi, a dissident journalist who was allegedly murdered by a team of Saudi agents inside his country's consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. The president on Thursday night called the Montana congressman, who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault last year for body-slamming Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs, "a great guy" and said his rally in the Big Sky State was a "tremendous success." "That was a tremendous success last night in Montana and Greg is a tremendous person and he’s a tough cookie, but I’ll stay with that," Trump said Friday. The president triggered another controversy over his attitudes toward the news media when he brought up the Gianforte assault in front of a raucous crowd of supporters at the rally. "I heard that he had body-slammed a reporter," Trump said. "I said, 'Oh, this is terrible, he’s going to lose the election.' But then I said, 'Well, wait a minute, I know Montana pretty well, I think it might help him,' and it did." The comments provoked laughter from rally-goers and condemnation from news media organizations. "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 Olivier Knox, president of the White House Correspondents' Association. Trump's heated rhetoric about the media has helped fuel scrutiny of Trump's handling of the Khashoggi case. The president on Friday said it is still “too early” to draw conclusions about the case, but opened the door to using sanctions as a potential punishment for anyone found responsible for the journalist's fate. “Could be,” he said when asked about possible sanctions, adding that he would “very much listen” to lawmakers in crafting a U.S. response. “It's something that we don’t like, very serious stuff, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it,” he said. Critics have accused the president of trying to protect Saudi Arabia from being held accountable and being more concerned about the U.S.'s geopolitical relationship with the kingdom than its human rights record.