Republican candidate Greg Gianforte, who is running for the congressional seat in Montana in a special election Thursday, allegedly body-slammed Ben Jacobs, a reporter from the Guardian, Wednesday.

Jacobs claimed that Gianforte attacked him during an event at the Republican candidate’s campaign headquarters in Bozeman, Montana, pinning him to the ground and breaking his glasses in the process, after the reporter asked him a question about GOP’s proposed healthcare bill.

“He took me to the ground,” Jacobs said by phone from the back of an ambulance to the Guardian. “This is the strangest thing that has ever happened to me in reporting on politics.”

Law enforcement officers arrived at the scene and spoke to Gianforte and Jacobs separately. The latter was given immediate medical attention and taken to Bozeman Health Deaconess Hospital to get his elbow x-rayed for possible broken bones. According to a latest report, the sheriff's office of Gallatin County, Montana, has charged Gianforte with misdemeanor assault.

In an audio recording from the scene of events, since uploaded by Jacobs on the Guardian, some sort of confrontation can be heard.

Even thought this is not the first time Gianforte has avoided questions he does not like or is not prepared to answer, this is the first known instance of him assaulting a reporter. Earlier in May, when a reporter questioned him about the GOP healthcare bill, Gianforte refused to comment at all on the topic, Missoula Independent reported. Instead, a spokesperson released the following statement to the press: "Greg needs to know all the facts, because it's important to know exactly what's in the bill before he votes on it."

In another instance, reported by the Guardian, Gianforte refused to be interviewed by reporter Paul Lewis, even though the spokesperson of Gianforte's campaign had agreed that the Republican candidate would be open to taking questions from the press.

At yet another event hosted by the Advancing Conservatism Society, an audience member reportedly asked Gianforte: “Our biggest enemy is the news media. How can we rein in the news media?”

To that, he answered: “We have someone right here. It seems like there is more of us than there is of him.”

Gianforte, 56, a businessman, is GOP’s pick to replace former representative Ryan Zinke, who was appointed by President Donald Trump as Secretary of the Interior, earlier this year. He is running against Democratic candidate Rob Quist. In 2016, Gianforte had unsuccessfully run for the governor of Montana.

It was also recently revealed that Gianforte has financial ties to two Russian companies, which are under U.S. sanctions, according to Raw Story.

The Republican candidate’s net worth is estimated to be in millions of dollars. He is married to Susan Gianforte, with whom he co-founded RightNow Technologies, a company he has since sold to Oracle for $1.5 billion. The couple has been married since 1989 and has four children, the Atlantic reported.

As Wednesday's incident gained wide coverage, Shane Scanlon, spokesman for the Gianforte campaign, however presented a different account of the events as they allegedly unfolded, in a statement via email to Bozeman Daily Chronicle.​

“Tonight, as Greg was giving a separate interview in a private office, The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs entered the office without permission, aggressively shoved a recorder in Greg’s face, and began asking badgering questions. Jacobs was asked to leave. After asking Jacobs to lower the recorder, Jacobs declined. Greg then attempted to grab the phone that was pushed in his face. Jacobs grabbed Greg’s wrist, and spun away from Greg, pushing them both to the ground. It’s unfortunate that this aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene at our campaign volunteer BBQ,” Scanlon wrote.

Meanwhile, Democrats have started demanding that Gianforte be pulled out of running for the congressional seat in Montana. Also, some of the biggest newspapers of Montana rescinded their endorsement of Gianforte, following the incident.

Guardian U.S. editor Lee Glendinning said in a statement: “The Guardian is deeply appalled by how our reporter, Ben Jacobs, was treated in the course of doing his job as a journalist while reporting on the Montana special election."

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