Donald Trump had to appear in civil court last fall to justify encouraging violence against protesters. As part of that, he ended up being forced to argue that violence was sometimes necessary to defend oneself against … fruit.
The plaintiffs in the suit were protesters who said they were violently assaulted by Trump’s security guards in 2015 outside of his New York office during a public demonstration opposing Trump’s racist rhetoric about Mexican immigrants.
According to The Daily Beast, which just obtained a transcript of the depositions not before released, the protesters’ lawyers asked Trump about an infamous comment he made at a rally in early 2016, where he encouraged his supporters to assault protesters. “If you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, just knock the crap out of them, would you?” he told the crowd.
Presumably, the lawyers were establishing Trump’s pattern of encouraging and condoning violence against his critics—something he’s done many, many times. This led Trump to argue in court, under oath, that he believed tomatoes are “very dangerous stuff,” “violent,” and even deadly.
Trump denied trying to “incentivize” his supporters to engage in violence but he defended his comment, saying that at that rally, he “wanted to have people be ready because we were put on alert that they were going to do fruit.”
Obviously, this is an extremely serious case that the protesters have brought but also, “They were going to do fruit” is right up there with “bags of soup” as one of the funniest things Donald Trump has ever said.
At one point, Trump tried to walk back his comments, saying he was joking, before doubling down and making it clear he was in no way joking whatsoever.
The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Cartwright writes:
Trump conceded that his remarks may have been “said sort of in jest,” but quickly added that there was “a little truth to it” because hurled tomatoes are “very dangerous stuff.” He noted: “You can get killed with those things.”
Trump said that tomatoes were bad but they weren’t the only dangerous fruit out there. Cartwright continues:
“Is it your expectation that if your security guards see someone about to throw a tomato that they should knock the crap out of them?” [plaintiffs’ lawyer Benjamin] Dictor then inquired, prompting Trump to yet again rattle off concerns about dangerous fruits.
“Well, a tomato, a pineapple, a lot of other things they throw,” he said. “Yeah, if the security saw that, I would say you have to—and it’s not just me, it’s other people in the audience get badly hurt—yeah, I think that they have to be aggressive in stopping that from happening. Because if that happens, you can be killed if that happens.”
“And getting aggressive includes the use of physical force?” the cross-examining lawyer followed up.
“To stop somebody from throwing pineapples, tomatoes, bananas, stuff like that, yeah,” Trump replied. “It’s dangerous stuff.”
Yup, that’s a former president arguing that aggressive use of physical force by a crowd of people is an appropriate reaction to defend oneself (meaning him) against a banana. It’s truly embarrassing that this is part of our national history.
(image: Deon Black on Unsplash)
Published: Apr 28, 2022 12:49 pm