The man that rushed Donald Trump’s podium at a rally in Ohio on Saturday says he wanted to show that the Republican front-runner is nothing more than an opportunirtic “bully.”
“I was thinking that Donald Trump was a bully and he is nothing more than that,” Tommy DiMassimo told CNN Sunday in an exclusive interview.
“He is just somebody that is just saying a lot of bold things,” DiMassimo said. “He is making bold claims, but I can see right through that. I can see he is truly just a coward.”
“He’s opportunistic and he is willing to destroy this country for power for himself,” he told CNN.
Many conservatives quickly critisized CNN for interviewing DiMassimo, saying the network was impropertly giving him a network.
DiMassimo said that at no point was his intention to harm Trump, he said.
“There would have been no point,” DiMassimo said.
He explained that Trump is 6’3″ and he is 5’9″. Trump “is a giant man surrounded by thousands of followers,” he said.
“I was thinking that I could get up on stage and take his podium away from him, and take his mic away from him, and send a mesaage to all people … who wouldn’t consider themselves racist, who wouldn’t consider themselves approving of what type of violence [he] is allowing at his rallies,” DiMassimo said.
He said he wanted to show “we can be strong and we can stand up against Donald Trump and this new wave he is ushering in of truly violent white supremist ideas.”
He also said that he was perplexed by Trump’s claim that DiMassimo was a member of the Islamic State. Trump apparently was fooled by a hoax video.
He said he is unequivocally not a member of the Islamic State, nor has he ties to the Islamic State, and is a Christian.
DiMassimo told CNN it appeared that someone grabbed video of him with an American flag and doctored it to make it appear he was somehow affiliated with an anti-American Islamic fundamentalist group.
