Last Updated on November 5, 2022
Supporters of far-left Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke physically assaulted independent reporter Tayler Hansen at a rally on Thursday night.
In a video of the incident, Hansen can be seen approaching the stage shouting “Beto!” At that point, a woman attempted to grab Hansen while the reporter continued to shout the candidate’s name.
“Will you disavow surgery for trans kids?” Hansen asked Robert Francis O’Rourke. “Why do you want to mutilate children, Beto?” the reporter asked as additional Beto supporters attempted to remove him from the crowd.
A woman in a wheelchair can be seen standing just behind Hansen as someone yells “she’s in a wheelchair!” The reporter was then dragged over the wheelchair-bound woman by his sweatshirt while another woman appeared to push him from the front. He was eventually slammed on the ground while one rallygoer appeared to kick him.
Today I confronted @BetoORourke at a rally in Dallas—
I asked him if he would “Disavow surgery for trans kids”.
In response, I was choked by his supporters and thrown to the ground. They pulled me backwards over someone in a wheel chair. pic.twitter.com/RxTgrukpPM
— Tayler Hansen (@TaylerUSA) November 4, 2022
“Today I confronted [Beto O’Rourke] at a rally in Dallas — I asked him if he would ‘Disavow surgery for trans kids,’” Hansen wrote in a tweet Thursday. “In response, I was choked by his supporters and thrown to the ground. They pulled me backwards over someone in a wheel chair.”
After Hansen was escorted from the event, O’Rourke told the crowd that the woman in the wheelchair was “OK,” failing to mention that it was his own supporters who dragged the reporter over her. “She got knocked over by that a****le but she’s OK,” the Texas gubernatorial candidate said.
“Another one of Beto’s supporters recorded me being choked and thrown down,” Hansen wrote in an additional tweet. “He immediately removed it from twitter when he realized that it didn’t make them look like the good guys.”
Hansen concluded by stating that he will be filing a police report for assault with the Dallas Police Department, adding that his microphone was damaged in the altercation.
The original poster who said I was “slammed” reuploaded the video and is now describing the attack as me being “crowd-surfed”.
He even goes as far as to say a woman tried to help me up when that clearly isn’t what was happening. https://t.co/Y2FjC9XZ02
— Tayler Hansen (@TaylerUSA) November 4, 2022