To fill the at large congressional seat left vacate when ryan zinke kill became interior secretary. Last night the republican candidate in that race was charged with misdemeanor assault after an incident with a journalist. We talked to a washington report they are morning to get an update on that story. The headlines in all the National Papers this morning are similar to the story that you wrote, gop candidate in montana race charged with misdemeanor assault after allegedly body slamming a reporter. So what was the line of questioning from this guardian reporter that prompted this kind of response from the candidate . Well, i should disclose that the reporter dave jacobs is a friend of mine. We were roommates for an highway. Very diligent and had the mild mannered. Hes not the kind of guide who jumps over a rope line. He was asking for gianforte to respond to the cbo score of the American Health care act. Gianforte said he couldnt officially take a position till he knew how much it cost. This is something we were waiting for. The reporters at all of his events waiting for this score to drop. Ben happened to push harder because he thought there wouldnt be another chance. Im saying push a little bit harder metaphorically because he as the Fox News Team that he watched in, gianforte wanted him to stop asking him questions and to bens surprise and bens injury, gianforte pulled him to the ground and started screaming at him for asking the question. So there were witnesses outside of the candidate and his staff . Yes, there was the Fox News Team that was there, national Fox News Team that was there to write about the story and it was doing had this not happened, it was going to kind of have capsule interviews with both candidates in a state of the race type of deal. According to the reporter whos wrote the column, i havent talked to them, i should say that column appeared after gianforte issued his own statement. That column contradicted it. They saw this. They saw it as unprovoked. They noted that they had to take a minute and gianforte tried to pivot right to talk to him and they wanted to ta pause because they were so shocked by what they saw. And so between that, between the buzzfeed reporter who was right outside the room but saw jacobs hit the floor, had you a series of witness whos were not going to this race expecting to be witnesses. They were expecting to write about the story. Instead police were sbk them in this very busy process right before the polls were opened. He has been charged with assault. What impact could this have on the election . Well, anecdote lit, i have talked to people and heard from people who were kind of put off the race which has been defined by extremely negative ads about both candidates who then said theyre going to vote against gianforte which could mean the democrat or libertarian. I thought what was striking last night was both gianfortes campaign characterized jacobs as a liberal being aggressive and republicans have said nothing to condemn the candidate. The national kong greggs did Republican Committee referred to the gianforte statement. So the republican political response has been to extent grit their teeth and say well, arent people tired of nosey reporters coming up to them. The people in the best position to contradict this, its hard to convey to people of how much of being a congressman is walking through a hallway with reporters shoving microphones in your face. Our responsibility as reporters is to get them to answer not just frivolous questions, but a policy question on a vote that a member of congress is going to take. And so i think the republican response has been, well, this looks bad. They have not responded for example, to three of the states largest newspapers pulling their endorsements of gianforte. There are still ads trumpeting those endorsements. Their spin is gianforte is the candidate more qualified to the job and that the media cant be trusted. The president before this did a robocall for the republican candidate endorsing him. Before this happened, what was the situation between the republican and the democrat in the state . How was it looking headinged into into today . It was looking tight. Slrp there were no public newspaper polls. Thats a factor in the race like a lot of states that dont have a gigantic city newspaper. There have been cutbacks. Theres a republican poll that had gianforte up by a lot. In talking to strategists on both sides, gianforte ran for governor last year and started with a double digit lead. Quist was winnowing that down. The republican response toquist was to define him early on as a liberal with a bunch of personal problems paying his taxes and they take credit for his negatives also being high. But to contrast with gianfortes high negatives. So they were trying to win a close race they thought was maybe a fivepoint race that bothersome resemblance to the clinton trump race of two candidates with a bunch of problems and voters slanting a little bit more republican so they would elect a republican. Its unclear if that will pan out today. One factor that again its hard to nail down the meaning of is montana because of this big rural population has a lot of early voting. About half of voters typically these days cast early absentee ballots. They were slanting more rural which were places that gianforte did well when he ran for governor. Democrats were fairly confident thequist vote was coming out. Hes from one of the most conservative parts of the state. He pent 40 years as a musician with a big following in the state. People were aware of him, they had no idea he was really into politics and they think they were already getting some votes, some kind of protest votes and personal votes in favor of him. Democrats are not confident today they could win this race but not really buying the spin that voters are going to side with gianforte. They think this is a net positive for them. Theyre just not sure whats going to happen. They know the Democratic National campaign committee, Keith Ellison dnc vice chair have called on gianforte to quit the race. Which he cannot do. Theres not enough time to do na. Any response from the republican candidate . No is, ive said briefly before he had a Statement Last night blaming this on the aggressive contact of a liberal reporter. Hes going to appear on fox news later today. I think at maybe 2 00 p. M. Eastern time. Those things can get moved around. What you have heard from vat gists in this race since the beginning is thatquist was kind of out camping doing public events, not with gigantic crowds but making himself pretty available. That changed only in the final stretch where he was doing less media. Gianforte did not do a ton of media, did not have big rallies apart from when donald trump and mike pence campaigned for him. H. There was a protect defense of trying to keep this republican voter advantage by making it a race between a generic republican with some problems and a generic democrat with some problems. If he comes out today with a different message, well know how they responded. Theyve been pretty dark since last night. The campaign has not said anything since that statement and republican groups have not added anything to this statement which i probably have not been clear enough in describing the statement. Its false. The witnesses on the ground say that this is not it was not the act of aggressive reporter. It was somebody asking a question who then was sideswiped by a candidate blowing up, screaming at him and throwing him to the floor. There are lots of incidents. A lot of citizens where a candidate clearly does not like hes getting questioned closely and usually he grimaces and walks away. He doesnt body slam anybody. David weigel, National Correspondent with the washington post. Thanks for joining us. I appreciate it. Thank you. This Holiday Weekend on American History tv on cspan3, saturday at 10 00 p. M. Eastern on reel america, the 1977 documentary men of bronze, about the allblack 369th u. S. Infantry regiment known as the harlem hell fighters during world war i. Now approximately 24 germans attacking. Needham roberts got slugged almost immediately. And johnson fought them off. He shot and he caught and he swung around and he defeated the 24 germans. Didnt wound or kill cut out. He had 21 wounds in his body. He refused to die. Sunday at 9 10 00 p. M. , historian and author Elizabeth Cobbs on the women telephone operators of the u. S. Army signal corps. Now in france before they got this entirely american line up, that meant that the local operator who had to speak to a french operator. They had to parlezvous and most doug boys did not parlezvous. So they had to get bilick wal american women who could ham women. They began recruiting women not because they were as good as men, because at least at this job, they were better than men. At monday at 9 00 a. M. Eastern, very visit the National World war i murm and memorial and talk with the museums senior curators, authors richard falner and the museums president and ceo matthew nailer. One thing to do is to tell is the story through the lives of people. Ordinary people, men and women, volunteers as well as those who served in the armed forces from all sides. For our complete American History tv schedule, go to cspan. Org. Yesterday education secretary betsy devos refused to say whether she would block private schools that discriminate against lgbt students from receiving federal dollars. That according to