GOP candidate Donald Trump singled out NBC reporter Katy Tur, who has been covering his campaign, during a rally in Miami on Wednesday, but his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway Thursday morning refused public comment on the incident, instead choosing to talk "generally about the media."
"He didn't mean it in any malicious way," Conway told MSNBC's Willie Geist and Mika Brzezinski on the "Morning Joe" program. "I have spoken to NBC News about that issue. I'll leave it there."
"Could you shed any light on it?" Geist asked her, following up on a question about whether it was "appropriate" for Trump to call out a reporter by name, given that "Katy had to be escorted out by Secret Service at previous rallies."
"No. Sorry," Conway said. "You can call me later."
But, she conceded that she prefers Trump to talk about "institutions generally," and said she talked with Tur personally Wednesday night.
On Wednesday, in the middle of his speech in Miami, Trump repeated his claims that the "dishonest" media does not show the size of his rallies, before calling out Tur by her first name, reports CNN Money.
"There's something happening. They're not reporting it. Katy — you're not reporting it, Katy," Trump said. "But there's something happening, Katy. There's something happening, Katy."
Tur has been covering Trump's campaign since last summer, and he has singled her out before. Last December, his supporters booed at Tur after Trump called her a "third-rate journalist" during a rally, and in a news conference, he told her to "be quiet."
Tur, appearing later on "Morning Joe," was not asked about and did not offer comment on the incident, instead reporting on Trump's polling numbers. She also did not address Trump's comments directly through her Twitter account, but did retweet a photograph from NBC News' Ali Vitali:
Journalists at Wednesday's rally said supporters there were harassing Tur after Trump's comments.
"Now this guy behind me is just endlessly taunting her," Yahoo's Holly Bailey tweeted. On Wednesday, other journalists rallied around Tur, using the hashtag #ImWithTur in their comments.
But rather than talking about Tur, Conway told the "Morning Joe" program that she'd tell the panelists "just generally about the media."
"You saw the polls," she said. "I hope you saw them this week that by a margin of 10 to 1, that's way outside of the margin of error, by margin of 10 to 1, Americans think the media want Hillary Clinton to win.
"The combination of Donald Trump rallying against political correctness and him reminding people what they already suspect, which is that the fix is in in many places, not all places. Not even most place perhaps, Willie but people are so tired of being told what to think and how to act and what to do."
But she wouldn't say how that connects with Tur.
"I've never seen her in her reporting ever tell anyone what to think," Brzezinski said. "Never once."
"I'm extrapolating on one of his major compelling and successful messaging points throughout this whole campaign, which is, don't let the establishment define you and tell you," Conway argued.
"That was the magic in the primaries. You combine Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, they were against establishment organizations. Don't let people tell you who can win who and who can't win and what to think and what to believe."