Incident Details
- Date of Incident
- February 22, 2018
- Location
- National Harbor, Maryland
- Targets
- Caleb Ecarma (Mediaite)
- Assailant
- Public figure
- Was the journalist targeted?
- Yes
Assault
Former White House aide Sebastian Gorka lectures Mediaite reporter Caleb Ecarma after shoving him, in this screengrab from a video shot by Daily Beast reporter Max Tani.
Mediaite reporter Caleb Ecarma was shoved by former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka while attempting to interview him at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on Feb. 22, 2018.
Ecarma told the Freedom of the Press Foundation that he approached Sebastian Gorka with the intention of interviewing him about the Conservative Political Action Conference. But before he could ask a question, he said, Gorka told him to “fuck off” and then shoved him.
Daily Beast reporter Max Tani captured published a video of the altercation on Twitter. The video shows Gorka shaking Ecarma’s hand and then shoving him backwards.
It’s hard to hear, but @calebecarma tells me Gorka told him to “fuck off” and he won’t talk to him because Caleb is “irrelevant.” pic.twitter.com/ewaBsqrqbz
— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) February 22, 2018
Seb Gorka just got in my face, told me to "fuck off" and shoved me — guess he's still not my biggest fan https://t.co/VLm0fdceLN
— Caleb Ecarma (@calebecarma) February 22, 2018
Addy Baird, a reporter at the progressive news site ThinkProgress, asked Gorka to comment on his interaction with Ecarma. She later tweeted that Gorka refused to answer her questions and denounced ThinkProgress as an illegitimate news outlet, and then whistled at her and insulted her.
So, I found Seb Gorka and asked him for comment on the video of him attacking a reporter this morning.
— Addy Baird 👽 (@addysue) February 22, 2018
“Who are you? Where are you from?”
I tell him.
“ThinkProgress isn’t reporters. I’m not interested.”
He starts walking away, then turns around and WHISTLES at me.
“I have a comment for you.” I walk back over. “You’re as much of a reporter as he is.”
— Addy Baird 👽 (@addysue) February 22, 2018
Ecarma and Gorka have a history.
“In October, I made a joke on Twitter about Gorka’s car because he drives a four cylinder Mustang instead of a V8, which is the flagship model of the car,” Ecarma said. “He took offense to a joke tweet, and he emailed me asking where he wanted to meet, as in, to fight.”
Ecarma said that he accepted Gorka’s invitation to meet in person and Gorka then suggested a televised debate instead. Ecarma said that he agreed to a televised debate, but the former Trump aide never followed up to schedule it.
Later that year in December 2017, Ecarma bumped into Gorka in person in at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Florida. He says that after he introduced himself, Gorka lunged at him and had to be pulled off by security.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogues press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
