March 11, 2016

After Violence, Trump Says Protesters at His Rallies Are “Bad Dudes”


During Thursday night’s GOP debate, moderator Jake Tapper asked Donald Trump about the recent spate of violence at his rallies, including an episode on Wednesday where a white man was charged with assault after punching a black protester at a Trump rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

“This is hardly the first incident of violence breaking out at your rallies,” Tapper said. “Do you believe that you’ve done anything to create a tone where this kind of violence would be encouraged?”

Trump responded that he didn’t condone this behavior. Tapper then proceeded to rattle off a series of Trump’s own quotes from the campaign trail, including one instance in which he said about a protester: “I’d like to punch him in the face.“

Trump responded by blaming the protesters: “We have some protesters who are bad dudes, they have done bad things,” Trump said. “They get in there and start hitting people. We had a couple big, strong, powerful guys doing damage to people.” Trump added that he relies on local police to remove protesters from his events, saying, “If they’re gonna be taken out, I’ll be honest, I mean, we have to run something.”

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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