When a pro-Trump protester interrupted President Obama’s speech at a rally for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the crowd began to boo. What happened next is on video, but Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s version of events differs markedly from the recording.
Obama settled the crowd by shouting:
“Hold up! Hey! Hold up!”
When the noise died down, Obama continued calmly:
“You’ve got an older gentlemen who is supporting his candidate … You don’t have to worry about him.”
The President then listed four reasons why the protester should be tolerated:
“We live in a country that respects free speech. Second of all, it looks like he might have served in our military, and we ought to respect that. Third of all, he was elderly and we gotta respect our elders. And fourth of all, don’t boo, vote!”
When Donald Trump spoke of the incident at his own campaign rally, he made his supporters and himself seem like victims of an aggressive Obama and unsympathetic media:
“He [Obama] was talking to the protester, screaming at him, really screaming at him. If I spoke the way Obama spoke to that protester, they would say, “He became unhinged!” And he [Obama] spent so much time screaming at this protester, and frankly it was a disgrace.”
Maybe Trump simply doesn’t care if the entire world knows he is a liar. More likely, he assumes that his base will accept his word as truth and not view the video for themselves.
Here’s a reminder of the Republican nominee’s way of handling protesters at his rallies:
“I”d like to punch him in the face.”
From a Las Vegas rally in February 2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_WZGM6GSPA
After this election, we hope that the next President of the United States will reaffirm free speech and mutual respect. Donald Trump’s behavior throughout this campaign reminds us not to take these founding values for granted.
Featured Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license
