Trump on Top Aide’s Battery Charge: Reporter Actually Assaulted Me

So far in his presidential campaign, Donald Trump has been unafraid to make bombastic and often violently-tinged statements, including calling Mexicans rapists and suggesting he could shoot someone in the street without it negatively impacting his poll numbers. So perhaps it should be of little surprise the Republican front-runner went so far as to verbally punch back against a female reporter Tuesday by suggesting she assaulted him — rather than his campaign manager assaulting her, as police allege.

Trump took to Twitter hours after police in Jupiter, Florida, charged his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, with simple battery, a misdemeanor. Lewandowski is accused of grabbing reporter Michelle Fields hard enough to cause bruising as she tried to interview Trump after a March 8 rally.

“Look at tapes – nothing there!” Trump began in the series of tweets. He suggested Fields is lying and that he might sue her.

“Why is she allowed to grab me and shout questions? Can I press charges?” he continued, saying she “changed her tune.” 

The tweets from the billionaire businessman come after his spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said Lewandowski is “absolutely innocent.”

Almost immediately after news surfaced of the charges against Lewandowski, rival Republican candidates and the Democratic National Committee looked to capitalize on Trump’s troubles. They cited it as evidence his campaign has been complicit in violence — and to hit the seemingly Teflon candidate where he’s apparently vulnerable: with women voters.

“It’s a very sad development,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who has exchanged barbs in recent days with Trump on everything from their wives to a suggestive National Enquirer story, told reporters Tuesday outside of an event in Milwaukee.

“This [is] the consequence of the culture of the Trump campaign. The abusive culture,” said Cruz, who is set to host a “Women for Cruz” event Wednesday in Madison, Wisc. “When you have a campaign that is built on personal insults, on attacks, and now physical violence. That has no place in a political campaign.”

DNC spokeswoman Shu-Yen Wei sought to connect the incident with the broader Republican Party.

“The pattern of violence at his rallies and derogatory remarks against women have become the norm for Donald Trump, but today the charges against Trump’s top campaign leadership reaffirms what we have known for years – that the Republican Party doesn’t stand alongside women,” Wei said in a statement. “The longer that Republicans accept this behavior … the further away they will stay from the White House.”

In a recent WSJ/NBC poll, 70 percent of women said they viewed Trump unfavorably, and 47 percent of Republican women said they couldn’t see themselves supporting him for president.

Perhaps sensing this attack was coming, Trump posted a video later Tuesday featuring women who admire him.

Trump, Cruz, and other candidates are campaigning in Wisconsin ahead of its April 5 primary.

Lewandowski was given a May 4 court date.

Photo credit: RHONA WISE / Stringer