Skip to content Skip to footer

Trump Tells Supporters Rallygoer Who Broke Through Press Fence Is “On Our Side”

One critic decried Trump’s statement last week as a “disturbing open call to violence” against the press.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in the 1st Summit Arena at the Cambria County War Memorial on August 30, 2024, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

During a campaign rally last week for former President Donald Trump in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Trump praised a man who jumped over the press barricade moments after he had railed against the media in his speech.

The man breached the barricade shortly after Trump referred to the media as the “enemy of the people,” a phrase he has employed for at least half a decade and that critics have noted echoes statements by authoritarians throughout history.

After breaching the barricade, the man, who was later identified as Pittsburgh resident Stephen Weiss, clung to an inner section where media was filming the event. It appeared that he was trying to climb into that area — but before he could, he was tased by police, removed from the arena and arrested.

It was later revealed that Weiss had hopped over the barricade in hopes of unfurling a banner in protest of Trump. However, due to Trump’s comments beforehand, many observers who were present misinterpreted his climbing into the press section as an attempt to attack the media — including, apparently, Trump himself.

During the period of time that it appeared that Weiss was targeting the press, Trump was celebratory, calling it “beautiful” that he had breached the press section.

“That’s alright. That’s OK. No, he’s on our side,” Trump told his audience, who had begun booing Weiss after security had pulled him away from the barricades. “We get a little itchy, don’t we? No, no, he’s on our side.”

“Is there anywhere that’s more fun to be than a Trump rally?” Trump added.

Journalist Matthew Kendrick described Trump’s words as a “disturbing open call to violence.”

Police have charged Weiss with a number of misdemeanors, including disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and disrupting a meeting.

The incident serves as a stark reminder of Trump’s animosity toward the press, observers have commented.

Trump has long issued attacks against the media, peddling unsubstantiated claims to his loyalists that journalists are biased against him and part of a conspiracy to defeat him. Trump began calling the press “enemies” of the people while he was in the White House, and has, at various points, demanded that outlets have their media licenses revoked for not covering his speeches or for publishing unflattering reports on him, wrongly describing such coverage as “election interference.”

While Trump was president, his administration also attempted to deny press credentials for CNN’s Jim Acosta, simply because the journalist had asked Trump a question he disliked during a press conference at the White House in November 2018. In defending the move, the Trump administration claimed that “No journalist has a First Amendment right to enter the White House,” a statement that the ACLU said flew in the face of precedent, as the White House is considered government property, and therefore “belongs to the people, not the president.”

Trump’s brazen attacks on the press have incited violence by some of his followers. In 2018, for example, a Trump loyalist named Cesar Sayoc sent pipe bombs to prominent critics of Trump, including members of the media who Trump had vehemently criticized.

While Trump maintains that he is not responsible for the actions of his followers, an ABC News analysis from 2020 found dozens of instances in which his followers carried out violence in his name because they believed Trump wanted them to do so.

Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn

Dear Truthout Community,

If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.

We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.

Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.

There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.

After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?

It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.

We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.

We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.

Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We’re presently working to find 1500 new monthly donors to Truthout before the end of the year.

We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.

With love, rage, and solidarity,

Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy