MSNBC’s Katy Tur compares covering Trump rallies to being ‘caged’ in ‘modern-day Roman Coliseum’

MSNBC anchor Katy Tur in her new book compares covering then-presidential candidate Donald Trump at campaign rallies to being “caged in the center of the arena like a modern-day Roman Coliseum.”

“They turn as one to boo at us in unison. Six thousand Trump supporters railing against 30 or so journalists — caged in the center of the arena like a modern-day Roman Coliseum,” Tur wrote in  “Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History.” 

Trump criticized Tur during several speeches throughout the campaign, calling the then-33-year-old a “third-rate reporter,” “disgraceful” and “not nice.”

At one point during the general election season in July 2016, Trump openly accused Tur of supporting Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

{mosads}”Do you have any qualms about asking a foreign government, Russia, China, anybody, to interfere, to hack into a system, of anybody’s email system?” she asked during a news conference in Philadelphia.

“That’s up to the president. Let the president talk to them. Look, here’s the problem — here’s the problem, Katy,” Trump replied.

“You said, ‘I welcome them to find those 30,000 emails,’ ” Tur injected.

“Well, they probably have them. I’d like to have them released,” Trump replied.

“Does that not give you pause?” Tur asked.

“No, it gives me no pause,” he said. “If they have them, they have them. We might as well find them. Hey, you know what gives me more pause that a person in our government, crooked Hillary Clinton—”

Tur attempted to step in again, but Trump verbally shooed her away.

“Be quiet. I know you want to save her. That a person in our government, Katy, would delete or get rid of 30,000 emails. That gives me a big problem,” Trump concluded.

Tur said crowds were so hostile that she had the Secret Service escort her to her transportation.

“They turn all at once, a large animal, angry and unchained,” she wrote.

Tur shared that she predicted Trump would win after then-FBI Director James Comey reopened a probe into Clinton’s email just days before Election Day in late October.

“He’s going to win,” Tur said she told a colleague. “It’s over. He’s going to win.”

Tur was awarded her own afternoon program on MSNBC in January. Her book is due to be released on Tuesday.