White House event turns rowdy as Seb Gorka calls CNN reporter a ‘punk’ in bizarre attack

Seb Gorka unloads on CNN political analyst Brian Karem. Screen capture by The Washington Post via YouTube

President Donald Trump probably doesn’t understand irony very well, but let’s face it — the fact that Twitter crashed Thursday, smack in the middle of his social media summit at the White House Rose Garden is well, ironic. And things devolved even further after former White House aide Seb Gorka harangued CNN’s political analyst, Brian Karem, Mediaite reports.

Gorka, a right-winger who hosts Salem Radio, lit into Karem, screaming:

“You’re a joke, not a journalist. You’re a punk!”

But even without Twitter crashing, the summit got off to a bumpy start, The Week reports. Trump used that particular moment to announce in front of reporters that the White House was dropping its push to include a citizenship question on the 2020 U.S. Census. Then he did what he does best, turning right around and walking away without answering reporters’ questions.

Obviously, that was frustrating for at least a few journalists attending the summit.

“Talk to us,” some journalists yelled. “The real news!”

The Rose Garden is usually the place where foreign heads of state are hosted and policy announcements are made. This time around, however, the imbroglio was deftly captured on film by The New York Times’ White House correspondent Katie Rogers.

In the video above, Gorka launches into a temper tantrum, accusing Karem of threatening him, then struts over to the rope line surrounding the seats at the event.

Right-wing Townhall columnist Jim Hanson also filmed the confrontation, Mediaite reports. Karem was apparently miffed over the seating situation, so he couldn’t resist taunting those gathered at the summit.

At one point someone off-camera tells him “don’t be sad, don’t be sad,” and the situation goes further south from there, culminating in the Gorka-Karem confrontation and the moment that went viral.

“No, I’m just standing around — this is a group of people that are eager for demonic possession,” Karem says.

A bit of laughter can be heard, and then off-camera Gorka shouts “and you’re a journalist right?”

So Karem turns and faces Gorka and waves him over inviting him to “come on over and talk to me brother.”

“We can go outside and have a long conversation.”

At this point, Gorka struts over to Karem, who folds his arms calmly. And that’s when Gorka, who’s earned a reputation for being hot-headed, let’s the insults fly. As he walks away, his fellow right-wingers chant “Gor-ka! Gor-ka!”

As he walks away a woman yells:

“You should not be attacking journalists like this.”

But now it’s Hanson’s turn to chime in, and he tells Karem:

“For the record, he’d kick your punk ass!”

As things wrapped up, Joy Villa, famed for wearing pro-Trump dresses began criticizing reporters, saying “fake news is over.”

Perhaps The Wrap’s Catherine Garcia puts it best:

“She’s right — you couldn’t have made any of this up.”

Indeed, everything about the Trump presidency seems surreal, unreal, and fake. Except for the journalists who report news that Trump says is fake. When it isn’t.

Featured image courtesy of the video above