A fight broke out at the White House Correspondence Dinner between reporters from Fox News and the Huffington Post!
Brawl between @ryangrim and @jessebwatters at MSNBC party. pic.twitter.com/Fy7VKFBdmh
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) May 1, 2016
The White House Correspondence Dinner was held at the U.S. Institute of Pease in Foggy Bottom, but the event seemed to be everything but peaceful as a brawl managed to break out between two reporters from reputable news outlets.
Sometime in the early morning on Sunday is when the fight occurred as Jesse Watters from Fox News and Ryan Grim from the Huffington Post went at it.
Witnesses say that Grim and Watters were in a group located under a heated tent right outside of the main party area. The two aren’t personally connected but Grim recognized who Watters was and brought up a beef he had with the “O’Reilly Factor” back in 2009. Watters was a producer for the O’Reilly Factor during that time and was known as an “ambush journalist”. It is believed that Grim brought up the old tension because he recalled how Bill O’Reilly confronted a writer for the New York Times named, Amanda Terkel – who is now a colleague of Grim – but Watters engineered the entire confrontation. Terkel’s account of the confrontation was, “I was followed, harassed, and ambushed by Bill O’Reilly’s producer.”
Grim felt it was the perfect time to give Watters a taste of his own medicine, despite the fact they’re at the White House Correspondence Dinner inside the U.S. Institute of Peace. But obviously this all didn’t pan out too well as Watters ended up snatching the phone, and now Grim was determined to retrieve it. This is when the scuffle ensued. The two tossed each other around a little bit, throwing punches, knocking over a table and bumping into some guests but that was about it.
Before things escalated several people attending the dinner broke up the fight.
Here is a video of Amanda Terkel recalling Bill O’Reilly’s and Watters’ ambush reporting:
Source: The Washington Post
