Trump says he doesn’t mind someone shooting at journalists at rally (WaPo)

Convicted felon, facing further indictments, confesses.  Believe him.  From The Washington Post: 

Trump says he doesn’t mind someone shooting at journalists at rally

Trump’s latest comments were an escalation of violent language he and his supporters have used in recent days.

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Trump says he ‘doesn’t mind much’ if press is shot at

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On Nov. 3, former president Donald Trump said he wouldn’t mind if an assassin had to “shoot through” the assembled media “to get me.” (Video: The Washington Post)

By Hannah Knowles

 and 

Meryl Kornfield

November 3, 2024 at 2:04 p.m. EST

LITITZ, Pa. — Donald Trump told a crowd on Sunday that he wouldn’t mind if someone shot at the news media present at his rally here, escalating his violent rhetoric at one of his closing campaign events where he repeatedly veered off-message.

Trump made the remark while complaining about the bulletproof glass surrounding him onstage — a fixture at his outdoor events since an attempt to assassinate him at a rally in July.

“I have this piece of glass here,” Trump said. “But all we have really over here is the fake news, right? And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news.

“And I don’t mind that so much,” Trump said. “I don’t mind. I don’t mind.” The audience roared with laughter.

Trump also said he regretted leaving office after losing the 2020 election and trying to overturn the result. He at one point said he “shouldn’t have left” the White House, while complaining about Democrats’ handling of the border and returning to his false claims that he won the 2020 election.

“We did so well,” he said.

Trump’s latest comments about the media underscored his embrace of violent language, days after he received blowback for suggesting former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney would not be such a “war hawk” if she went into combat and had guns “trained on her face.”

It capped a week when Trump and his allies repeatedly made incendiary or offensive comments that could alienate moderate voters in the final stretch of the presidential race.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung issued a statement contradicting Trump’s Sunday comments. He said the sentiment had “nothing to do with the Media being harmed,” adding that Trump actually meant that the media members were “protecting him and, therefore, were in great danger themselves.”

Trump’s rally in Lititz, being held at the airport in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, veered off-script more than usual.

The former president dwelled particularly long on personal grievances, insults and baseless claims that the election may be rigged against him. His campaign believes other issues — immigration and the economy — will resonate with voters and deliver victory. But Trump is often distracted.

“They are fighting so hard to steal this damn thing,” Trump said, referring to unspecified “crooked people.”

He repeated his assertion that the entire country should use paper ballots and criticized how long it takes to count votes. He also alluded to his various criminal indictments, saying, “The ones that should be locked up are the ones that cheat on these horrible elections that we go through in our country.”

He kept returning to the issue.

“We got a bunch of cheaters that all they do is think about how they can cheat,” he said later on.

Trump also vilified his opponents in striking terms, calling the Democratic Party “very demonic.”

“The people, regular Democrats aren’t,” he added, but “we do need people to say it.” Trump has also called his political opponents “the enemy within.”

Trump’s criticism of the “fake news” media has been a staple of his rallies for years. Audience members boo the press at every event, at Trump’s prompting, in what has become a sort of ritual.

But Trump’s Sunday comments were an escalation — and came as Trump’s violent language is already in the spotlight. 

“Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay?” Trump said of Cheney at a Thursday campaign event. “Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.” 

The former president said he was simply criticizing hawkish politicians who have not gone to war themselves — but his words triggered a sharp backlash, with Cheney calling them threatening and saying, “This is how dictators destroy free nations.”

Trump has also used violent language for hecklers at his rallies. In 2016, after someone interrupted a Las Vegas rally, Trump told the crowd: “Here’s a guy throwing punches, nasty as hell, screaming at everybody else,” then added, “I’d like to punch him in the face.”

In Iowa during the same campaign, he encouraged supporters to “knock the crap” out of potential hecklers. And last month, at a California rally, Trump suggested that a heckler would later get “the hell knocked out of her.”

Trump on Sunday complained to the crowd about polls showing a close contest, especially a well-regarded poll released Saturday that showed Harris with a slight lead in Iowa. The latest Des Moines Register-Mediacom poll found Harris led Trump 47 percent to 44 percent, a surprising finding at odds with other surveys of the red state.

“If you look at three, four months ago, I was losing states that are now walks,” Trump said Sunday. “They suppress, and it actually should be illegal.”

He said the polls “are just as corrupt as some of the writers back there,” indicating the journalists covering the rally.

Kornfield reported from Washington.