“My concern is not about my situation as much as it is with Jamal Khashoggi and everything going on in the world, that the signal this sends about how the United States and how the president of the United States views journalists when 44 journalists have been killed this year,” Jacobs noted. ” What I’m going through, it’s not fun, I’ll get over it, but there are people reporting all across the world right now who are actually, you know, in fear of their lives. And what this does is, you know, a blank check for governments who want to crack down on a free press in places that don’t have the First Amendment.”

He also stressed that Trump’s praise was unwarranted because the man who bodyslammed him is not a tough cookie but a coward.

“A tough cookie doesn’t attack someone out of nowhere without provocation, for asking a question about health care policy,” Jacobs said, directly disputing Trump’s claim that Gianforte’s “a great guy and a tough cookie.”