Donald Trump paused a campaign rally Friday night in Oklahoma to stare down a protester who showed up wearing a white T-shirt stating in dark letters, “KKK endorses Trump.”
Trump walked to the edge of the podium, staring toward the man for several moments as law enforcement officials moved to escort him away from the area.
“In the good ‘ole days, law enforcement acted a lot quicker than this,” Trump said when he finally returned to the microphone.
“In the good ‘ole days, they’d rip him out of that seat so fast. But today everybody is politically correct,” Trump said. “You know, it is a shame, when you think.”
On the eve before the Nevada caucuses Trump publicly wished he could commit physical harm to a protester being escorted out of his rally.
I’d like to punch him in the face,” Trump said, remarking that a man disrupting his rally was escorted out with a smile on his face. “He’s smiling, having a good time.
Trump claimed the protester was “nasty as hell” and accused the man of trying to punch the security officers forcing him out of the rally, though the man did not appear to be fighting off those officers.
In the old days, protesters would be carried out on stretchers. We’re not allowed to push back anymore.
Reality
Comments like these add to the growing evidence that Donald Trump supports and condones violence against people with different ideas.
Ten veterans from Veterans Challenge Islamophobia unfurled a 10-foot banner during Trump’s speech in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina today. The banner read:
“Mr. Trump: Veterans are not props for hate. We stand with our Muslim sisters and brothers.”
The U.S. veterans who launched the effort have served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam. Many were also decorated for their valor. The veterans, some of whom hail from the organization Iraq Veterans Against the War, were forcibly escorted outside after Trump supporters waved signs while chanting Trump’s name. But the group’s actions will not be deterred.
Veterans Challenge Islamophobia plans to take its campaign to other primary states and will fly a similar banner in Las Vegas on Monday evening at Trump’s event there. They say they will continue until Trump and other Republican candidates cease their discriminatory attacks on Muslims.
“Mr. Trump’s hateful rhetoric insults both my Islamic faith and my military service. As a U.S. Marine who served in Iraq, I find it shameful that a major presidential candidate would impugn my patriotism, or that of other Muslims, because of our faith,” said Ramon Mejia, who served with the U.S. Marines in Iraq (2001-04).
“As an Army veteran, I deeply resent being used as a prop for intolerance by Mr. Trump. I enlisted in order to serve everyone in my country, including my Muslim sisters and brothers, and to protect constitutional freedoms like religious liberty,” said Maggie Martin, who served three tours in Iraq and Kuwait with the U.S. Army (2001-06).
“As a medic in Afghanistan, I worked closely with Muslim interpreters who risked their lives to support our mission. I’m disgusted when I see candidates like Mr. Trump — who never served in the military — try to demonize Muslims for his own political gain. We need to make it very clear: Islam is not a national security threat,” said Perry O’Brien, who served with the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan (2001-04).
During his speech, Donald Trump did not respond directly to the protesters, but did make note of people who challenge him as security folded up the group’s banner.
“We’re going to make the wall 10 feet taller,” Trump said. “And every time they protest, it’s going to go up a little bit higher.”
Donald Trump has made many comments discriminating Muslims. Let’s let Veterans For Peace explain why that is bad:
Bigotry and racism violate all of the values we believed we were defending during our military service. The ideals contained in the Constitution, to the degree they have been manifested in America, have been a beacon to much of the world because of the diversity, openness, and respect for people of all faiths that most Americans live by. It will be a great calamity if we let fear give rise to hatred.
Fear-mongering endangers our national security and gives rise to hatred and racism that play into the hands of an enemy that wants to convince Muslims around the world that the West, led by the U.S., hates them, and that joining ISIL or similar organizations is the only way to truly observe and defend their religion. We can never defend ourselves effectively by playing into our adversary’s strategy, giving credibility to their recruitment propaganda. We endanger ourselves whenever we make that mistake.
Donald Trump rewards a couple of supporters for helping to forcibly remove a protester.
Reality
Comments like these add to the growing evidence that Donald Trump supports and condones violence against people with different ideas.
By giving permission, and now reward, for confrontations by Trump will make only make violence more normal to his supporters and cause a continued escalation. A true president would work towards uniting and diffusing situations.
A group of immigration hecklers took on presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign event in New Hampshire.
Trump was taking questions at the historic Exeter Town Hall building in Exeter, where his supporters were packed in like sardines. Also in the mosh pit, it turned out, were a few opponents of the candidates’ position on immigration.
One young woman began asking the Republican candidate for president a question by identifying herself as being from Southern California.
“What are you doing here?” Trump asked. “Are you a liberal Democrat, by any chance?”
After the woman mentioned that immigrants “do the work that nobody else wants to do and for a lot less,” the real estate tycoon asked, “Who told you to be here? Bernie [Sanders]?”
“This is a Bernie plant,” Trump said, referring to Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. “This is a Bernie plant.”
Another audience member then yelled out that immigrants living in the country illegally are the “backbone of this country.” In response Trump heckled back:
Illegal immigrants are the backbone of our country? I don’t think so, darling. You know what the backbone of our country is? People that came here, and they came here legally … and they worked their asses off and they made the country great.
At a rally Monday afternoon in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Donald Trump told a crowd of supporters that if they happened to see protesters getting ready to lob a tomato, they should “knock the crap out of them.” Trump began his speech by noting that he had received a warning from the “wonderful security guys.” He said:
There may be somebody with tomatoes in the audience. So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Okay? Just knock the hell— I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise. It won’t be so much ’cause the courts agree with us too.
Shortly after Republican front-runner Donald Trump began speaking at his veterans’ fundraising event in Iowa on Thursday night, a move in protest of Fox News’s GOP debate happening simultaneously nearby, three protesters began shouting at the billionaire from the audience.
“We love our vets, Trump loves war!” two women and a man said as security personnel escorted them out of the gathering at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
Media
Three protestors shouting "We love our vets, Trump loves war" pop up, get thrown out pic.twitter.com/UeLRXoMstx
Donald Trump’s tetchy relationship with protesters took another controversial turn on Sunday when he appeared to mock a turban-clad man ejected from a campaign rally in Iowa.
The incident began as Trump was inveighing against “radical Islamic terror,” a common theme in his stump speeches.
“Somebody has to say what’s going on,” he said roughly 15 minutes into an hour-long speech at Muscatine High School, before referencing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the San Bernardino, Calif., shooting in December.
“When planes fly into the World Trade Center, and into the Pentagon, and wherever the third plane was going, when people are shooting their friends in California–” Trump said before abruptly pausing as his attention was drawn to the gym’s upper level, where a security guard and a police officer were confronting two protesters.
The protesters were trying to unveil a white sheet with the words “stop hate.” One of the protesters wore a beard and bright-red turban similar to those worn by Sikhs.
“Bye, bye,” Trump said sarcastically as the guard pushed the protester toward the exit and as the crowd began whistling. “Goodbye, goodbye.”
The capacity crowd then broke into chants of “U.S.A., U.S.A.,” before Trump appeared to make a quip about the protester’s turban, which was roughly the same color as Trump’s popular red “Make America Great Again” hats.
“He wasn’t wearing one of those hats was he?” Trump said, gesturing to a supporter’s hat and eliciting a laugh from the crowd.
“And he never will,” Trump continued, segueing back into his speech, “and that’s okay, because we got to do something folks because it’s not working.”
Reality
Sikh is not Muslim. Muslim is not Sikh. Read a little. You become less ignorant.
A new video shows Donald Trump supporters assaulting protesters who were engaged in a peaceful demonstration.
The 1:44 minute clip was captured during a Trump rally at Oral Roberts University’s Mabee Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Sarah Palin, who endorsed him earlier this week, joined the multi-billionaire at the rally yesterday.
At the beginning of the clip—which was recorded as the Republican frontrunner was wrapping up his remarks—four Trump supporters block the view of two protesters. One of the men then shoves the two protesters. A volley of words ensued between the two groups, while other rally goers can be heard yelling at the protesters, “Get out!”
At the 50 second mark a big, burly man wearing a cowboy hat puts one of the protesters in a headlock from behind and attempts to drag him away. As Trump is boasting, “We’re going to win so much. . . you people are going to get sick and tired of winning”, security arrives, breaks up the melee, and presumably escorts the protesters out.
Reality
Violence at Trump rallies by supporters is the norm.
Donald Trump had his security forcibly remove a heckler from a rally on Monday for calling the GOP presidential front-runner “boring.”
“This is boring! This is boring!” the unidentified man yelled during the event in Windham, N.H. “Tell some jokes.”
Trump then smiled at his disrupter before calling for his ejection once it became clear the man would not stay silent.
“Get him out of here,” he said. “Get out of here, go ahead. Out, out, out, out, get out.”
“He wants jokes, [but] there’s nothing funny about this,” Trump continued. “This is so serious. He’s got a very serious problem. I saw that when I came in. He says, he loves me, ‘I love you, you’re the greatest’ — no. Get him out of here.”
The heckler repeatedly swore he is a Trump supporter as security escorted him from the rally, CNN reported Monday.
“I love Donald, but it’s getting a little boring,” said the man said, who wore a hat with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan. “It’s getting a little boring.”
