Donald Trump defended a supporter who sucker punched and threatened to murder a protester. Trump said, “But the kid did, from what I hear, stick up a certain finger right in everybody’s face. And this man has had enough, because I’ll tell you what, people in this country are very angry. “
On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace quizzed Donald Trump pretty forcefully about violence at his campaign events.
First, Trump insisted nobody has ever been hurt.
WALLACE: Question, sir: do you take any responsibility for the violence at your rallies?
TRUMP: First of all, I disagree totally, Chris, with what you said. I have by far the biggest crowds, 25,000, 30,000 people.
Last week, we had in Alabama, 35,000 people. And out of that, we’ll have some disrupters, sometimes put there by other people. But we’ll have some protesters. And nobody’s been hurt at all.
Wallace played video that indicated otherwise:
WALLACE: Sir, let’s take one example. First of all, we’ve been running video that shows a number of punches being thrown. I don’t know that people have ended up being hospitalized.
Let’s take one example. On Wednesday in North Carolina, a protester named Rakeem Jones was being peacefully escorted from the event—I’m not saying he didn’t do something provocative. Yes, you can see he flips off a crowd, but then a man in the crowd elbows him in the face, knocks him to the ground. Here’s what the man says afterwards—
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, he deserved it. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Mr. Trump, does that have any place in America?
TRUMP: No, it doesn’t, and it’s a shame that it happened. And I feel badly for everybody concerned. And we don’t condone violence.
Then Trump immediately did condone violence - and suggested President Obama is to blame:
TRUMP: But the kid did, from what I hear, stick up a certain finger right in everybody’s face. And this man has had enough, because I’ll tell you what, people in this country are very angry. They’re angry at incompetent politicians, they’re angry at losing their jobs, not having a pay increase for 12 years and more effectively.
Everything’s—this country is not—we can’t beat ISIS. Our military is going to hell. You look at what’s going on with the vets, they’re treated horribly. They’re worse than illegal immigrants. We have a big portion of this country that’s fed up.
You look at the Rust Belt and other areas of our country where jobs are being taken. They’re all being moved down to Mexico and other locations. They’re being moved out of the United States.
We have a president that doesn’t have a clue. He doesn’t know what’s going on.
And the people of this country are angry. They’re not angry people, but they’re angry now.
Wallace also played clips of Trump saying at rallies, “Just knock the hell,” “I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell you,” and “In the good old days, they’d rip him out of that seat so fast.”
“That sure sounds like condoning violence,” Wallace added.
In one jumbled mouthful, Trump alternately suggested that any violence was no biggie because most people at his rallies are not threatened, that any violence that does happen is justified and that nobody has been hurt.
TRUMP: Well, I’ll tell you what—the one—first one, I was told by Secret Service that there were two people in the audience, they couldn’t find them, they didn’t know where they were, but they had tomatoes and they were going chuck them at me. And maybe they had good arms, OK? And, you know, being hit in the face by a tomato is not exactly so good.
So, before I saw them, in my speech, I said, folks, you have two people with tomatoes. If you see ‘em, do whatever you have to do to ‘em, I don’t care. And you know what? I think I’m totally within my rights to say that.
But everything I say—in fact, if you play 99 percent of the clips, I’m always saying, don’t hurt ‘em, take it easy. Don’t hurt ‘em.
And I’m saying that to the police who are really mistreated in this country, by the way. They’re not appreciated for the great job they do. But, usually, it’s the police, it’s not my people, it’s the police in the various municipalities that I go to. Honestly, they take—they really take it easy.
And again, Chris, with rallies of 25,000 and 35,000 people, you don’t know of one injury in any of our rallies.
…And I will tell you, though, Chris, with all of the—with all of the rallies that you’ve been witnessing over many months, you haven’t had one person that’s even been hurt. And I’m sitting here listening to you tell me like, oh, like everybody’s being maimed. It’s not that way.
And I have often said, do not hurt him. You’ve heard me say that. You don’t want to play those clips.
Actually, there are plenty of photographs of people hurt at Trump rallies. One injury, in particular, has come into the spotlight lately and that’s the one to Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields. She has just filed an assault complaint against Trump campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. On Friday night, Fox’s Megyn Kelly carefully went over the audio, video and visual evidence against Lewandowski and it’s very damning.
But for some reason Wallace did not bring that up. Media Matters notes that none of the three other Sunday talk show hosts who interviewed Trump today did either, though both the media criticism shows, CNN’s Reliable Sources and Fox’s own MediaBuzz discussed it.
Watch Trump continue to condone violence, below, from the March 13 Fox News Sunday.
(Transcript via FoxNews.com)
Speaking in an emotional manner without filter : exactly the qualities needed for a president. Certainly gives the best results in diplomacy, no? Add narcissism, thin skin, self-agrandizement and a good deal of ignorance (in particular about foreign matters) and you have the best recipe to make the world safer, and “America great again”.
Damed! I already feel safer.
On tonight’s “O’Reilly Factor”, BOR has been spending his time going off on the media, of course, for being unfair to Trump. He also mildly advised Trump to tone down his rhetoric.
Then Krauthammer (who I rarely agree with) came on as a guest. He rightfully went off on Trump for how badly he handled the incident in which one of his supporters sucker punched the anti-Trump protester. But, not only did Kraut call out Trump, he also called out BOR. Damn! LOL!
Krauthammer to BOR: “Come on, are you letting Trump off the hook on this?”
BOR: “I’m not. And I said that he has to readjust his rhetoric. Trump is…”
Krauthammer interrupting: “Come on, Bill, readjust the rhetoric?! What kind of weaselly words are those, readjust the rhetoric?”
BOR: “I’m trying to deal with this in a fair and balanced way. I think we’re going to remove the word weaselly from that.”
K: “It’s not enough. The point I’m trying to make is that it’s not enough.”
BOR then goes on to provide a defense for Trump by saying that he’s a billionaire who is speaks in an emotional manner without a filter and Krauthammer continued to say that Trump was wrong not to directly condemn the sucker punch.
Nicely done, Mr. K. Clearly, BOR is having a hard time being as hard on Trump as he would be if it were a liberal/Dem politician behaving like Trump. Krauthammer called him out on it and it was refreshing to see because BOR seems to be incapable of seeing the fascist, racist aspects of Trump’s rhetoric.
BOR, the weaselly wordsmith. Bwaaah!
And I’m certain that Cleveland can rally to welcome this years GOP convention. The Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and the Cleveland Garden Society are more than up to the task of hosting the GOP and the K Street lobbyists.
Why the Cleveland Hilton is in training as we speak. (You know how upset the Donald gets if the brie is not at room temperature). Why I even heard there are tours of Harvey Pekar’s home on the schedule.
I just hope the Cuyahoga doesn’t catch fire.
Cleveland (site of the 2016 RNC) is gonna be a riot.
(Literally.)
.
But what I really do need to see is Mr Trump on that stage in an outdoor arena on a windy, windy day. I need to see what’s under that orange fur.
But really, Trump’s rallys are getting pretty hairy.
Disproportionate response is a hallmark of psychopaths, sociopaths and generally very disagreeable people. Is this who you want as leader of America?