By Callum Borchers
November 3 2016
Donald Trump has taunted NBC News's Katy Tur before. He has called her a “third-rate reporter” on Twitter, told her to “be quiet” during a news conference and given her the demeaning nickname “Little Katy.” But he seemed to encourage his supporters to get in on the act at a rally in Florida on Wednesday, when he singled out Tur during one of his familiar (and unfounded) rants about how the media supposedly ignores his crowd sizes.
“We have massive crowds,” the Republican presidential nominee said. “There's something happening. They're not reporting it. Katy, you're not reporting it, Katy. But there's something happening, Katy. There's something happening, Katy.”
Tur described what happened next, when she appeared on MSNBC's "11th Hour” with Brian Williams on Wednesday night.
“It is a unique experience to have an entire crowd of people — whether it is in an open-air venue, like we were today, or a stadium with 10-plus thousand people — booing you,” Tur said. “And it's especially unique when they're actually saying your name and looking directly at you, and that's what happened today.”
“I do have the hide of a rhinoceros,” Tur added. “So that helps.”
Tur recounted her “crazy year with Trump” in greater detail in Marie Claire in August.
Although Trump has called out Tur at rallies before, something about the way he essentially sicced his crowd on her in Florida seemed to galvanize journalists and pundits. Many tweeted supportive messages using the hashtag #ImWithTur.
When Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway appeared on CNN on Wednesday evening, Wolf Blitzer questioned her about the candidate's behavior.
“He's not asking people to be mean to her,” Conway said. “He's not asking people to do anything, God forbid.”
This is where we are in the 2016 campaign: Trump's team is arguing that the real estate mogul's bullying isn't that bad because he hasn't explicitly told his backers to insult or harm a reporter.
Conway doubled down Thursday morning on MSNBC's “Morning Joe,” saying Trump “obviously didn't mean it in any malicious way.”
“I've spoke with NBC News about that issue, and I'll leave it there,” she added, refusing to discuss the matter further.
Tur, for her part, returned to fact-checking Trump during her Wednesday night appearance with Williams.
“The idea that we're not showing this movement is just factually incorrect,” she said. “Donald Trump also does know this to be incorrect. He has joked in private — with reporters — about how he understands how the pool camera works. And, Brian, I don't need to explain it to you, but I'll explain it to our audience: The pool camera is one camera that sits in the middle of the press area and it shoots the candidate, and it stays on the candidate at all times because we're trying to get what the candidate says, and it goes out to all of the networks. That camera is stationary; it is never supposed to move.”
“This is a shtick that he does,” Tur added. “It's to rile up his base. It's to give them an excuse for polls that might not be in his favor. It's to give them an excuse to berate somebody other than Donald Trump.”
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