Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:50 pm
An obviously paranoid Donald Trump told numerous lies while blaming the violence at his rally in Arizona on the protesters during an interview on ABC’s This Week.
Video:
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Transcript via ABC’s This Week:
STEPHANOPOULOS: But what about this violence…
TRUMP: And it was beautiful. Then…
STEPHANOPOULOS: — Mr. Trump?
TRUMP: — then — well, then a little bit later on, we went, uh, to other areas. I mean we — we went all over — frankly, we went all over Arizona, uh, and we went to Tucson and we had so many people that wouldn’t allow people for the rally into the door. They were making it almost impossible to get in. We had 6,000 or 7,000 people, at least. We had 2,000 people outside. They wouldn’t allow them in.
These people are very disruptive. People, George.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But does that excuse…
TRUMP: These are not innocent lambs.
STEPHANOPOULOS: — punching and kicking a protester?
TRUMP: Well, you know, he was wearing — he or his partner was wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit. This happened to be an African-American man who was very — a person at the rally, who was very, very incensed at the fact that somebody, a protester, would be wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit.
And he went…
STEPHANOPOULOS: You appear to be…
TRUMP: — pretty wild…
STEPHANOPOULOS: Using that…
TRUMP: — and frankly…
STEPHANOPOULOS: — (INAUDIBLE) kicking and punching (INAUDIBLE)…
TRUMP: — frankly, that was a, you know, it was a tough thing to watch. And I watched that.
But why would a protester walk into a room with a Ku Klux Klan outfit on?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, it looked like he was wearing an American flag right there.
But does that justify violence…
TRUMP: Well, you would have seen him…
STEPHANOPOULOS: — punching and kicking?
TRUMP: — if you would have seen him just before he went up the stairs, him and his partner were wearing — one of them was wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re not going to condemn the protester who kicked and punched that person?
TRUMP: We don’t condone violence and I say it. And we have very little violence, very, very little violence at the rallies. Uh, as I said, in Phoenix, we had 21,000 people. We had — we didn’t even have anybody stand up and — and try and disrupt, you know, the disrupters. And they’re really stopping our First Amendment rights. If you think about it, George, they block — they blocked a road, they put their cars in front of a road. We had thousands and thousands of people wanting to come. They were delayed for an hour because of these protesters.
And, you know, at what point do people blame the protesters?
These are people that are profit agitators…
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re blaming the protesters, not the person who actually punched and kicked the protester?
TRUMP: No, I’m — I’m saying this. These are professional agitators and I think that somebody should say that when a road is blocked going into the event so that people have to wait sometimes hours to get in, I think that’s very fair and there should be blame there, too.
When signs are put up, lifted up with tremendous profanity on them, I mean the worst profanity, and you have television cameras all over the place and people see these signs, I think maybe those people have some blame and should suffer some blame, also.
As you can see from the video, the man who was punched did nothing to provoke a physical assault.
Video:
https://youtu.be/dTmRBBEdxm8
Trump also excused his campaign manager for grabbing and shoving a protester:
https://youtu.be/0GRUDYtLnKE
Donald Trump is trying to play the victim. Trump is blaming the protesters for the violence that he is inciting. In fact, violence appears to have become a part of Trump campaign strategy. Violent rallies equal more news coverage. More news coverage equals more free media.
Trump’s attempt to blame the protesters was all part of an attempt to rally Republicans behind him by portraying his campaign as under physical attack from the left. Trump’s excuse that his campaign events have very little violence doesn’t hold up because the other presidential campaigns have no violence.
Instead of challenging Trump’s strategy to promote and encourage violence, the media is turning a blind eye. Just once, it would be nice to see one of the Sunday shows stop dead in its tracks when Trump tells an obvious lie and press him.
Donald Trump is showing the depth and degree of his paranoia, and the corporate media is letting him get away with vicious lies that are encouraging violence.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
