Tag: violence approval

Trump complains security guard wasn’t rougher with female protester

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Donald Trump appeared to call for security guards to be rougher in handling a female protester who interrupted him during a rally.

The young woman brandished a sign with a large, pink middle finger on it and wore a T-shirt that read “grabbing power back” – a reference to the president’s infamous “grab them by the pussy” remark.

Her presence attracted vociferous boos from the crowd in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday. Mr Trump repeatedly urged security staff to “get her out”.

Footage shows a guard attempting to block the woman and usher her away, but she evades him.

After pausing his address, Mr Trump returned to the microphone and said: “That particular guy wanted to be so politically correct – oh-oh, aah. We don’t want to be politically correct.”

The president imitated the guard’s arm movements to suggest he had been insufficiently robust in his response to the protester.

“I don’t know who he was, he didn’t do the greatest job,” Mr Trump added.

Mr Trump has previously said he would like to punch a man who interrupted a 2016 rally in Las Vegas.

And in the same year he instructed supporters to “knock the crap out of” anyone they saw preparing to throw a tomato at him, promising to pay their legal bills if they did so.

With his visit on Tuesday, Mr Trump was seeking to shore up support in a swing state he won by less than 1 percentage point in 2016 ahead of the November 2020 election.

Pennsylvania, one of three “rust belt” states the Republican won with votes from people who had previously supported Democrats, is seen as key to keeping him in the White House, along with Michigan and Wisconsin.

[Independent]

Gruesome Video of Fake Trump Killing Media in Mass Shooting Played at One of His Resorts

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At a time when our nation is facing an epidemic of mass shootings, supporters of President Donald Trump showed a violent depiction of a fake Trump massacring members of the news media using a gun and other weapons at a conference held at one of the president’s resorts, the New York Times reported Sunday night.

American Priority, a group that supports the president, hosted the conference at Trump National Doral Miami. Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. and Florida Governor Rick DeSantis were all scheduled to speak at the event. But Huckabee Sanders and a source close to Trump Jr. denied either saw the video.

Bloomberg technology reporter William Turton surfaced a video matching the description from the Times on YouTube. The video appears to have been uploaded by YouTube account TheGeekzTeam in July 2018, and the account has posted other videos doctored to make it look like Trump is violently killing his enemies. Although Turton said he has not yet been able to confirm the YouTube video was the same one played at the conference, the details in the video as described by the Times line up, although portions like the Barack Obama interview at the end of the video were not reported to have been shown.

In the video,a man with Trump’s head superimposed on his body goes into a building labeled the “Church of Fake News” where people inside are labeled with logos of major news outlets including Vox, Politico, the Washington Post, HuffPost, ABC and NBC covering their heads. Trump then opens fire, killing numerous media outlets including Vox, Politico and NPR, in addition to activist group Black Lives Matter. The fake Trump begins his rampage using a gun but later switches to a wooden stake and a knife. Also in the video are Hillary Clinton, Maxine Waters, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, John McCain and Rosie O’Donnell — all of them are slaughtered by the killer Trump. The mass murder ends with the president driving a wooden stake into the head of a person depicted as the church’s minister with a CNN logo covering their face as DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win” plays in the background.

The footage, the Times said, was taken and doctored from a church massacre scene in the dark comedy “Kingsman: The Secret Service.”

Trump’s presidency has been marked by criticism of the news media, and recently he has even been vocally critical of his beloved Fox News. The president himself has shared a video depicting himself as violent toward the media, tweeting out a doctored video of him body slamming a man with a CNN logo over his head in 2017. Trump has also turned his ire toward reporters during his political rallies, spurring his supporters to taunt and threaten members of the media covering him.

When we are barely a year out from the tragic Capital Gazette shooting in Maryland that killed five of the newspaper’s staff not to mention other recent mass shootings in churches, synagogues and mosques, videos like this are particularly dangerous, especially when they are broadcast at events even loosely affiliated with the president and on property he owns.

[Rolling Stone]

Media

Trump praises N.H. lawmaker who called for shooting Hillary Clinton

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President Donald Trump on Thursday praised a New Hampshire Republican who previously called for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be shot by firing squad.

Speaking at a rally in Manchester, N.H., Trump gave a shoutout to state Rep. Al Baldasaro, who had previously served as an informal adviser during his 2016 campaign. Baldasaro had been diagnosed with cancer, Trump said during the rally, and he added that his apparent recovery and successful treatment were a testament to the changes to the Veterans Choice Program that Trump signed into law last year.

Trump also praised Baldasaro for making it to “every rally I ever gave in New Hampshire.”

“Right from the beginning. I got so tired of looking at him; he’d always be here,” Trump said.

While advising Trump in the summer of 2016, Baldasaro called Clinton a “disgrace” for her role in responding to the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and said that she “should be put in the firing line and shot for treason.”

CNN later reported the Secret Service was investigating the remarks at the time, and the Trump campaign disavowed what Baldasaro said.

Still, Baldasaro was invited to the White House in June 2017 for a bill-signing ceremony, again prompting Trump’s team to distance itself from his remarks. Baldasaro said on Twitter at the time: “Nobody advocated shooting Hillary, just an opinion in accordance with law & CONSTITUTION on treason.”

[Politico]

Trump Calls Chris Cuomo an ‘Out-of-Control Animal’ Who Uses ‘Horrible’ Language and ‘Spews Lies’

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President Donald Trump weighed in on the viral outrage of the day by calling CNN anchor Chris Cuomo an “out-of-control animal” who also “spews lies every night,” while also seeming to criticize Cuomo for not assaulting the man who taunted him.

During an impromptu press gaggle in New Jersey Tuesday afternoon, Trump was asked about his tweets attacking Cuomo over the aborted bar fight that was caught on video.

“I think that what Chris Cuomo did was horrible,” Trump told reporters. “His language was horrible, he looked like a total out-of-control animal. He lost it.”

“And frankly, I don’t think anybody should defend him, because he spews lies every night,” Trump continued. According to The Washington Post, Trump recently made the 12,000th false or misleading statement of his presidency.

The president then paraphrased his earlier assertions, saying “I don’t know why anybody would defend him, but, Chris Cuomo was out of control, I watched it I thought it was terrible. So I don’t know who is defending him, maybe they didn’t see it, maybe they haven’t gotten the whole picture, but I think anybody that would have seen Chris, would have said that was a disgrace. You’ve never seen me do that.”

Trump has, in the past, offered to pay the legal fees of rallygoers if they carried out violence on his behalf.

Trump was then asked if his tweets undermine the validity of so-called “red flag” laws.

“Well I think Chris Cuomo was so out of control that I would not have wanted to see a weapon in his hand,” Trump said, then appeared to criticize Cuomo for not punching the man who accosted him, saying “I guess his fist is not a weapon, or he would have done something, you know he talked about it but he didn’t do anything.”

Seconds after observing that Cuomo did not commit violence during the altercation, Trump again insisted “But I think Chris Cuomo was very much out of control actually.”

[Mediaite]

‘Shoot them!’: Trump laughs off a supporter’s demand for violence against migrants

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A roar rose up from the crowd of thousands of Trump supporters in Panama City Beach on Wednesday night, as President Trump noted yet again that Border Patrol agents can’t use weapons to deter migrants. “How do you stop these people?” he asked.

“Shoot them!” someone yelled from the crowd, according to reporters on the scene and attendees.

The audience cheered. Supporters seated behind Trump and clad in white baseball caps bearing the letters “USA” laughed and applauded.

“That’s only in the Panhandle you can get away with that statement,” Trump replied, smiling and shaking his head. “Only in the Panhandle.”

Though Trump didn’t explicitly endorse the suggestion to shoot migrants, his joking response raised concerns that he was tacitly encouraging extrajudicial killings and brutality against asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants. The president has long been accused of endorsing acts of violence through his incendiary rhetoric and allusions to the potential for violence at his rallies, a charge that members of his administration deny.

Reached for comment by The Washington Post on Trump’s reaction at the Florida rally, Matt Wolking, deputy communications director for the Trump campaign, pointed to a response he had given to many critics on Twitter. The president, he noted in his tweet, had specifically said that Border Patrol wouldn’t use firearms to stop migrants from entering the country.

The incendiary remark from the crowd came as Trump, standing before roughly 7,000 people who had gathered at an outdoor amphitheater in the hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast town, railed against what he described as an “invasion” of migrants attempting to enter the United States. Often, he claimed, only “two or three” border agents will contend with the arrival of “hundreds and hundreds of people.”

“And don’t forget, we don’t let them and we can’t let them use weapons,” Trump said of the border agents. “We can’t. Other countries do. We can’t. I would never do that. But how do you stop these people?”

The fans seated directly behind Trump wore serious, perturbed frowns, which were quickly replaced by broad grins after the shouted suggestion that the solution involved firearms. Uproarious laughter rippled across the room as audience members whistled and offered a round of applause.

To critics, Trump’s failure to outright condemn the idea of shooting migrants amounted to a “tacit endorsement” of the sentiment. Many pointed out that such rhetoric was especially concerning in light of the fact that an armed militia group, the United Constitutional Patriots, had been searching the borderlands for undocumented migrants and detaining them against their will.

Last month, after the group’s leader, Larry Mitchell Hopkins, was arrested on charges of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition, the FBI said that the 69-year-old claimed militia members were training to assassinate former president Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and prominent Democratic donor George Soros.

One member of that militia had also questioned why the group wasn’t killing migrants, according to a police report first obtained by left-leaning news outlet The Young Turks.

[Washington Post]

Media

Trump Laments Troops at Border Can’t Get ‘Rough’ Because People Would ‘Go Crazy’

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During a roundtable in Texas on Wednesday, President Donald Trumplamented that troops on the United States border can’t can’t get a little “rough.”

“You don’t need drones…but if you don’t have a wall it is never going to happen” Trump began.

He then said border people are “fantastic” before insisting he was going to have to call up more military.

Then the president said this: “Our military, don’t forget, can’t act like a military would act because if they got a little rough everybody would go crazy. So our military can’t act like they would normally act — or like, let’s say, another military from another country would act.”

The roundtable was held in San Antonio. Trump was joined by local officials and ranchers. Trump is also set to attend a second fundraiser in Houston on Texas. According to Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel the two fundraisers are expected to raise $6 million.

[Mediaite]

Trump says he’s ‘very proud’ to hear Bolsonaro use the term ‘fake news’

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President Trump said Tuesday that he was “very proud” to hear Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro use the term “fake news” during a news conference at the White House.

Trump offered praise for his Brazilian counterpart, who has earned the nickname “Trump of the Tropics” for his similarities to the U.S. leader, during a diatribe against tech companies and broadcast networks. Trump suggested that those two groups are biased against him and other conservatives.

“You look at the networks, you look at the newscasts. I call it fake news,” Trump said. “I’m very proud to hear the president use the term fake news.”

Bolsonaro invoked the term Trump regularly uses to describe unfavorable news coverage during his opening remarks.

“Brazil and the United States stand side-by-side in their efforts to ensure liberties in respect to traditional family lifestyles, respect to God our creator, against the gender ideology or the politically correct attitudes and against fake news,” he said through a translator.

Tuesday’s news conference underscored the similarities and friendly relationship between Trump and Bolsonaro, who took over as president in January. The two men spoke of improving relations between their respective countries, and referenced their closely aligned views.

“I also know that we’re going to have a fantastic working relationship,” Trump said. “We have many views that are similar.”

Bolsonaro later predicted that Trump will win reelection in 2020.

“It’s an internal affair, we will respect whatever the ballots tell us on 2020,” he said through a translator. “But I do believe Donald Trump is going to be reelected.”

[The Hill]

Reality

Bolsonaro promised in his campaign he would shoot political opponents, including the press. Donald Trump is again promoting violence against those who disagree with him.

Trump Deletes Tweet Promoting Breitbart After Interview Derided for Suggesting Violence

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President Donald Trump, or more likely his social media team, have deleted a Thursday tweet that linked to Breitbart.com featuring an exclusive interview that had been widely criticized for the promotion of violence.

In the Wednesday interview, Trump seemed to threaten that things will get “very bad” if his supporters in the military, police, and motorcycle clubs decide to start playing “tough.”  The now-deleted tweet was posted at 10:05 PM EDT.

Seeing as the tweet came after news of the mass shooting of Muslims worshiping at a Christchurch, New Zealand mosque that resulted in the deaths of roughly 50 individuals, many commentators saw this particular response as inappropriate.

Given the volume of Trump tweets, it is a relatively uncommon occasion that President Trump deletes a tweet, and most often the reason for deletion is an obvious and sometimes embarrassing typo. But the tweeting of the website — that features a recently published article that ostensibly warns his detractors of Trump supporters getting “tough” — was considered beyond the pale for White House social media monitors (and perhaps even Mr. Trump) and therefore taken down.

So far the White House has not yet commented or given a reason for the deletion of this tweet.

[Mediaite]

Trump suggests that it could get ‘very bad’ if military, police, biker supporters play ‘tough’

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President Trump in a new interview suggested that his supporters are tougher than Democrats, and that if they actually play tough things could get “very bad.”

Trump made the comments in the context of an interview with the conservative outlet Breitbart in which he argued that Democrats play a tough political game. 

“You know, the left plays a tougher game, it’s very funny,” Trump said in the interview with Breitbart published on Wednesday. “I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher.”

“I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,” Trump said.

“But the left plays it cuter and tougher. Like with all the nonsense that they do in Congress … with all this invest[igations] — that’s all they want to do is — you know, they do things that are nasty. Republicans never played this.”

In his remarks, Trump traveled down territory he has visited in the past.

During a rally for then-Missouri Senate candidate Josh Hawley (R) in September, Trump said that his opponents “were lucky that we’re peaceful,” The Washington Post noted in a post on his more recent comments.

“Law enforcement, military, construction workers, Bikers for Trump … They travel all over the country …. They’ve been great,” Trump said at the time. “But these are tough people … But they’re peaceful people, and antifa and all — they’d better hope they stay that way.”

The latest remarks were seized upon in some quarters as another example of Trump seeming to offer threats toward his political opponents.

Trump has faced scrutiny in the past for directly calling on his supporters to use violence. He once said at a 2016 rally in Las Vegas that he’d like to punch a protester in the face. 

Trump also encouraged his supporters at another event to “knock the crap” out of any protesters causing trouble. 

“I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees,” Trump said. 

Trump has repeatedly denounced his political opponents during his time in the White House. He has also continually referred to the media as the “enemy of the people.”

The White House Correspondents’ Association in February called on Trump to make it “absolutely clear to his supporters that violence against reporters is unacceptable.”

[The Hill]

Trump: ‘People would revolt’ if I were impeached

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President Donald Trump says in a new interview that he is not concerned about being impeached by Democrats, saying, “I think that the people would revolt if that happened.”

In a Reuters interview Tuesday, Trump spoke out for the first time about new documents filed by prosecutors detailing the alleged crimes of his former lawyer, Michael Cohen. Cohen has said he made hush payments to two women accusing Trump of infidelity in the waning days of the 2016 campaign.

Asked if he discussed campaign finance law with Cohen, Trump tells Reuters: “Michael Cohen is a lawyer. I assume he would know what he’s doing.”

He adds: “Number one, it wasn’t a campaign contribution. If it were, it’s only civil, and even if it’s only civil, there was no violation based on what we did. OK?”

[The Washington Post]

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