A campaign rally of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump scheduled for Friday night in Chicago has been postponed for safety reasons due to widespread protests, a Trump campaign staffer said.
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“The audience swung back”, Trump told reporters Friday morning.
The man who was punched, Rakeem Jones, told The Associated Press that he and others went to the event as observers, not protesters. Protesters chanted “Bernie, Bernie” in support of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
With only a very mild denunciation about the North Carolina event, Trump essentially validated the assailants.
Donald Trump’s campaign canceled a planned Chicago rally on Friday night after chaos and clashes between protesters and attendees overtook the event.
Outside the pavilion, chants of “We shut it down!” rippled through the crowd on news of the cancellation.
The riotous atmosphere comes after Mr. Trump has faced scrutiny for the violence at his political rallies – sometimes encouraged by the candidate from the stage.
“Honestly can I be honest with you?”
One group, Showing Up for Racial Justice, coordinated with minority student groups on local campuses, using group email chains and messaging so that protesters could stay in constant communication.
“I’m happy, I’m at peace because we came together as a collective”, Lewis told Reuters. So we should, I suppose, pause to appreciate the restraint and substance of the latest GOP presidential debate. “We’re not there to police the protesters“, said Robert Hoback, a spokesman for the Secret Service, commenting on reports that Secret Service agents escorted protesters out of a recent Trump event in Georgia. Though he believed it would have been possible to move forward, he said he made the “wise decision” to postpone the rally to keep everyone safe. A Black protester in Alabama was beaten in front of police; a Black college student who attended a rally in Kentucky was assaulted and called the n-word and a c**t; and a Black Clemson professor, wearing a Muslim head scarf, was removed from a Trump rally. “Up until this point we’ve had no problem”.
Four days before primaries in Illinois, Ohio and Missouri, Trump will address supporters in St. Louis, a short drive from Ferguson, which erupted in 2014 after a grand jury didn’t indict a white officer who shot an unarmed black teenager.
Protesters have been roughed up inside other Trump rallies. “And if they’ve got to be taken out, to be honest, I mean, we have to run something”.
The television program Inside Edition says it interviewed McGraw, who said the man deserved to be hit and “might be with a terrorist organization”.
At some events, altercations have turned physical.
He once said he would like to personally punch a protester in the face and has pledged to pay his supporters’ legal bills if they get in trouble.
And Trump has incorporated reactions to them into his usual stump speech. One was punched as he was led from the arena. Their goal, he said, is “for Donald to take the stage and to completely interrupt him”. He was not arrested.
“I know who you came to see and hear, so I’ll be quick”, she said. “The message Trump is spreading all over the country, it doesn’t work here”.
In an email about the North Carolina incident and arrest, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said, “We are not involved”. King had tried to get into the rally but the event was canceled before she got in the door. “Because this is a great city and we don’t want to let that person in here”.
As the crowd began to trickle out, Josh Glaspie, 28, smoked a cigarette on a sidewalk strewn with discarded signs.
But did any of Trump’s rivals demand that he substantiate his claim? “He’s all mouth”, Trump said.
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“You’ll notice it’s singles”, he said, referring to the protesters.
