“I think her bodyguards should drop all weapons. They should disarm, right?” “Take their guns away. let’s see what happens to her”. “Okay? It would be very risky”.
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Trump justified the comment by saying Clinton “wants to destroy your Second Amendment”.
But there was blowback on Saturday after the Republican nominee made another ad-libbed reference to violence and reignited controversy with a popular sitting president.
The Clinton campaign says it’s precisely because of these previous remarks that Trump’s latest outburst is so concerning since it fits “a pattern of inciting people to violence”.
Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook called the comment “out of bounds”, and said “we’ve seen again and again that no amount of failed resets can change who Donald Trump is”.
He said: “This kind of talk should be out of bounds for a presidential candidate”.
Trump’s previous jokes about forcing Clinton’s bodyguards to give up their firearms hadn’t invoked a possible attack so overtly.
Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the James L. Knight Center in Miami, Florida on September 16, 2016.
Trump was speaking about Clinton’s policy on right to own guns during a rally in Miami.
“You know (Clinton’s) very much against the Second Amendment”. At an event earlier this summer, Mr Trump similarly seemed to invite violence against the former first lady when he warned a crowd of supporters that unless “the Second Amendment people” stopped her she would chose anti-guns justices to sit on the US Supreme Court.
Not one to back down, Clinton’s pinned tweet on her account now reads, “What Trump just did is a disgrace”. “Take their guns away”.
Trump’s campaign said the August remarks were a call for increased Second Amendment advocacy by supporters.
Friday’s comments came just hours after Trump, who for years had questioned Barack Obama’s nationality as part of the “birther” movement, acknowledged for the first time that the president was a native-born United States citizen.
The president was meeting with business leaders and state and local officials at the White House to discuss the Trans Pacific Partnership when he answered a shouted question about Trump’s birtherism from the press pool. At a Trump rally in March, Secret Service agents leaped on stage and surrounded him as colleagues tackled a man who jumped a barricade and ran toward the candidate.
But it is worth noting Trump later tweeted a similar statement – even after acknowledging the shootings of police officers in Texas and Pennsylvania.
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He added that the people of Venezuela “are yearning to be free, they are yearning for help”.
