Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has once again used violent rhetoric on the campaign trail – and then had the nerve to accuse opponent Hillary Clinton of being “trigger happy.”
On Friday, Trump departed from his prepared remarks to say the following about Clinton:
“She is being so protected. She could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching right smack in the middle of the heart and she wouldn’t be prosecuted, OK? That’s what’s happened. That is what’s happened to our country.”
Trump pantomimed shooting a gun as he spoke.
CBS News made a false equivalence between Trump’s remark and Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment. But that keeps Trump’s remark as a gaffe. It should be a reminder of his violent rhetoric.
At the same rally, CBS News also caught Trump boasting about a shoot-first strategy with Iran:
“‘When they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn’t be allowed to make,’ Trump said, ‘they will be shot out of the water. OK? Believe me.'”
His comment is also reminiscent of his boast in January:
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s, like, incredible.”
And we should not forget that just last month, Trump suggested somebody should assassinate Clinton:
“By the way, and if she gets the pick—if she gets the pick of her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I dunno.”
The fact is that Donald Trump has a long record of violent rhetoric and encouraging violence. Yet at that same Friday rally, CBS also reported:
“He referred to his opponent for the White House, Hillary Clinton, as ‘trigger-happy’ multiple times and also said, ‘Personally, I think she’s an unstable person. OK?'”
The media should not whitewash this latest outburst.
Watch the CBS News report, below.
Featured image from YouTube video.
