curious to hear your thoughts on "first offenders need to be stopped first'. I think you're saying something like "stop a problem as soon as you see it's a problem".
Also, when you say "he got on talking" you mean when he said "You're a winner", or went on talking to someone else.
To take your question literally - I think people defending him see this about loyalty (for lack of a better word). To me it seems like the reporter maybe asked a question that more or less wasn't positive on the show, or that was the energy there...and Alec was attempting to promote/defend/uplift Hilaria....so they see her response as basically being mean to someone who was trying to support her.