BuzzFeeds Michael Hastings Claims Rahm Emanuel Physically Assaulted Him

Photo Credit: Current TV

BuzzFeed’s Michael Hastings has come out with some explosive allegations against Chicago Mayor (and former White House chief-of-staff) Rahm Emanuel. The reporter is claiming that the politician physically assaulted him during an interview, grabbing his arm and attempting to intimidate him “with a threat of physical violence.”

The Daily Caller describes Hastings’ account of the exchange that he had with Emanuel:

On Thursday’s broadcast of Cenk Uygur’s “The Young Turks” on Current TV, Hastings played an audio recording of a verbal exchange he had with Emanuel that came on the heels of his 2010 Rolling Stone article “The Runway General,” which resulted in the termination of then- Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

“I’m not going to let you do to me what you did to Stanley McChrystal,” Emanuel said at one point during the interview, which appears to have gone off the rails immediately after Hastings said “we’ll see” in reference to President Barack Obama’s re-election.

In providing a recap of the experience, Hastings said that he had never experienced anything quite like the contentious exchange he had with the Chicago mayor. The reporter alleged that Emanuel grabbed his arm and refused to let it go. Hastings called the interaction “abusive.”

“I don’t mind being yelled at, like verbally abusive, fine,” he said. “But I think the mayor — and I made this point in an email later to his staff, clearly crossed the line by grabbing me.”

Hastings said that he has interviewed “terrorist leaders…dictators…a lot of politicians…a lot of angry people,” but that no one had ever put their hands on him. The journalist also claimed that Emanuel didn’t seem to be “in full control of what he was doing” during the exchange.

Watch him describe the bizarre, alleged incident, below:

Hastings further describes the encounter in his new book, “Panic 2012: The Sublime and Terrifying Inside Story of Obama’s Final Campaign.”

(H/T: Daily Caller)