A CNN panelist with close ties to Donald Trump is defending a participant at a Trump rally who assaulted a protester, and said reports that Trump’s campaign manager had manhandled a reporter were totally false.
Andy Dean, who is best known for competing in the second season of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” joked Wednesday afternoon that a 78-year-old Trump supporter who sucker punched a black protester at a campaign rally in North Carolina had an impressive right hook.
“That guy’s 78, and throwing a punch like that … At his age, we must say that is very, very interesting,” the former reality TV show contestant said.
CNN’s Brooke Baldwin interjected, saying, “I’m not giving him credit for throwing a punch.”
Dean, who CNN bills simply as a “Trump supporter,” powered ahead, arguing that the GOP front-runner is in no way responsible for how his supporters act.
“He can’t control a 78-year-old man who, at that age, that looks like good exercise,” he said. ‘He’s 78. It’s somewhat impressive.”
Police arrested the Trump supporter, John McGraw, and charged him with assault and battery and disorderly conduct, according to the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.
The victim was 26-year-old Rakeem Jones.
Asked about the altercation, McGraw told Inside Edition, “You bet I liked it. Knocking the hell out of that big mouth.”
Referring to why he punched Jones, who flipped off the crowd of Trump rally-goers, the 78-year-old man said, “Number one, we don’t know if he’s [with the Islamic State]. We don’t know who he is, but we know he’s not acting like an American, cussing me… If he wants it laid out, I laid it out.”
“Yes, he deserved it. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him. We don’t know who he is. He might be with a terrorist organization,” he added.
Back at CNN, panelist Tim Miller pushed back on Dean, and said that the former celebrity “apprentice” exemplified “Trump culture.” Miller then brought up reports alleging Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski violently pulled on Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields by the arm at an event Tuesday evening, leaving the journalist bruised and crying.
Dean cut Miller off and claimed that the entire story was a lie.
“That is an outright lie,” he said. “That is dangerous … That is outlandish and downright defamation.”
Politico published a transcript Thursday afternoon purporting to be from an audio recording of the altercation between Fields and Lewandowski, which Washington Post reporter Ben Terris said he witnessed firsthand.
Earlier, on Wednesday, the Daily Beast published a story wherein an anonymous source alleged that Lewandowski had admitted to Breitbart’s Matt Boyle that he had, in fact, yanked on Fields. The Trump campaign manager allegedly told Boyle that he wouldn’t have done that had he known she was with Breitbart.
Lewandowski has, for his part, responded to the story by accusing Fields of being a liar and an attention seeker.
