If Donald Trump has a personal credo, it might be something like what he said Friday morning in Palm Beach: “When somebody hits, I have to hit back.”
Speaking to reporters at a press conference, Trump was talking specifically about the debates with his fellow Republican candidates for president. But his mantra seems to have been taken literally by a few of his supporters. Most recently, a 78-year-old North Carolina man was arrested after sucker-punching a protester at a Trump rally. Asked at Thursday’s CNN debate about whether Trump himself primes his fans to react violently to those who disagree with him, the candidate chalked it up to the “passion” of his supporters. He also argued that in many cases, the protesters started it by “swing” and “hitting people” at his rallies.
At Friday’s press conference, Trump stuck to this latter argument when asked again about the violence and the language he himself has used that seems to condone it. One reporter asked about a Las Vegas rally on February 23 where Trump said he would like to punch on particular protester “in the face” as the protester was being led out of the building. “Is that just politics, are you playing a character there?” the reporter asked.
“It’s politics and it’s fact. We’ve had some violent people as protestors. They’re not just people saying ‘ohhh.’ These are people that punch. These are people that are violent people,” said Trump.
Then Trump addressed the incident where he said he’d want to punch the protester in the face. “That was a very vicious, it was a guy who was swinging, very loud, then started swinging at the audience, and you know what? The audience swung back. And I thought it was very, very appropriate. He was swinging. He was hitting people. And the audience hit back. And that’s what we need a little bit more of. And I’m not talking about just a protester. This was a guy who should not have been allowed to do what he did.”
Reporters who have covered Trump events say the claim that protesters have thrown punches unprovoked simply isn’t true. The only indication that the particular protester in Las Vegas threw punches came from Trump himself, who claimed from the stage to see it. And as the video from the recent North Carolina event shows, the Trump supporter punched the protester unprovoked, as the protester was leaving the event. The protester was not “swinging” or punching anyone.
Even if Trump’s claim that the protesters are violent, does that justify “punching back” from civilians when law enforcement officers from local police to the Secret Service are present? Certainly not. And while Trump claims, as he did in the debate, that he does not “condone” violence from his supporters, his own words—that punching back is “very, very appropriate”—contradict him.
The number of Trump supporters who engage in violence against protesters is, of course, very small relative to the large crowds. Many of them, like the North Carolina man, could possibly have mental issues. But when the candidate himself encourages punching people who disrupt his rallies, when that candidate allegedly asks law enforcement to remove 30 silent protesters from a rally, when that candidate’s own campaign manager is accused of assaulting a female reporter, when that candidate goes on to defend supporter violence dubiously as self-defense, it suggests the thuggery is a feature, not a bug.
