We analyzed 9 years of Trump political speeches, and his violent rhetoric has increased dramatically
A POLITICO analysis of more than 20 of his rallies and campaign events shows Trump has demonized minority groups in all of them.
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Liberate Call To Violence (April 17, 2020)
Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot (October 8, 2020)
Oregon Capitol Insurrection (December 21, 2020)
On December 21, 2020, a group of protesters demonstrated at the Oregon State Capitol against health restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Oregon. A security video released in January 2021 showed Representative Mike Nearman allowing armed protesters to enter through a side door, after which Nearman circled the building and entered from the other side. The Oregon House of Representatives voted 59–1 to expel him for his actions. He later pled guilty to first-degree official misconduct.
The protesters included members of the Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, and supporters of QAnon. One person maced police officers, while others vandalized the building and another assaulted two journalists. At least three of the protesters present at the Oregon State Capitol later participated in the January 6 United States Capitol attack.
Armed Protesters Break Into Oregon State Capitol Building, Break Windows, Assault Journalists, Hit Police With Chemical Agent
Oregon lawmaker ousted for allowing rioters into State Capitol
November 22, 2015
In a Fox News interview, Trump defends the actions of his supporters who were caught on video shoving, punching, and kicking a protester at a Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama after the man interrupted the rally by shouting, “Black lives matter!” According to Trump: “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing. I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy who was a troublemaker who was looking to make trouble.”
December 22, 2015
At a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Trump mentions the fact that Vladimir Putin “has killed reporters” and says he is “totally against that” himself: “I hate some of these people, but I’d never kill them.” (This comes on the heels of an earlier controversy in which he seemed to downplay Putin’s murders of journalists and political opponents by saying that “our country does plenty of killing also.”) Pointing at the journalists in the press pen, he repeats, “I hate them. . . . These people, honestly, I’ll be honest, I would never kill them. I would never do that.” And then, after taking a showman’s pause to imply uncertainty or hesitation: “Uh, let’s see, uh? No, I would never do that.”
February 1, 2016
At a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Trump announces that he has been warned about tomato-throwers in the audience: “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of ’em, would you? Seriously. Just knock the hell—I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. I promise.”
February 22, 2016
Trump reacts to a nonviolent heckler in Las Vegas, Nevada with nostalgia for more violent times: “You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks. . . . I’d like to punch him in the face, I tell you.”
March 4, 2016
After a protester interrupts a rally in Warren, Michigan, Trump tells the crowd, “Get him out. Try not to hurt him. If you do, I’ll defend you in court.”
March 9, 2016
At a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Trump says, “All right, get him out, thank you; we’re gonna have such fun, such fun tonight” after a protester is sucker-punched while being escorted out. (It’s unclear whether Trump saw the punch.) Trump later complains about protesters at his rallies: “They put their hand up and they put the wrong finger in the air . . . and they get away with murder. Because we’ve become weak.”
March 11, 2016
At a rally in St. Louis, Missouri, Trump complains that using violence against putative protesters is frowned upon: “They’re allowed to get up and interrupt us horribly and we have to be very, very gentle. They can swing, they can hit people but if we hit them back it’s a terrible, terrible thing.” (Sen. Ted Cruz—then Trump’s rival in the GOP primary, not yet his sycophant—claims Trump’s campaign “affirmatively encourages violence.”)
August 9, 2016
At a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, Trump tells his supporters that Hillary Clinton will abolish gun owners’ rights if elected, then adds, “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people—maybe there is, I don’t know.” Trump later claims he was simply saying that Second Amendment supporters are a powerful voting bloc who can stop Clinton, but in context, his remark clearly referred to something that “the Second Amendment people” could do after Clinton’s election victory.
July 28, 2017
At an appearance in Brentwood, New York, Trump boasts about encouraging police officers to manhandle suspects: “When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough. I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice.’ . . . When you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head you know, the way you put their hand over [their head]. . . . Like, ‘Don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody, don’t hit their head.’ I said, ‘You can take the hand away, okay?’”
October 18, 2018
At a rally in Missoula, Montana, Trump gives an extended riff praising Greg Gianforte—then a congressman, now the governor of Montana—for assaulting reporter Ben Jacobs in May 2017 during his campaign for the House seat. Gianforte was convicted of misdemeanor assault in June 2017 after pleading guilty. To Trump, this is a point in his favor: “Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!”
May 9, 2019
At a rally in Pensacola, Florida, Trump plays standup comedian in response to a suggestion that migrants should be shot at the border. After complaining that border agents aren’t allowed to “use weapons” against border-crossers, he adds, “I would never do that. But how do you stop these people?” When someone shouts out, “Shoot them,” Trump chuckles, pauses to let the audience cheer and laugh, then delivers his punchline: “That’s only in the Panhandle you can get away with that statement. Only in the Panhandle,” and basks in the wild applause and laughter. (In October of that year, there were reports—not contested by Trump—that in White House discussions of the migrant problem, he had suggested shooting border-crossers in the legs.)
April 17, 2020
In a series of all-caps tweets, Trump urges protesters against COVID-19 lockdowns in blue states to “liberate” their states and seems to encourage the use of weapons by stressing the Second Amendment and supposed perils to it.
May 1, 2020
Trump tweets again in support of Michigan anti-lockdown protesters who had swarmed the statehouse the previous day, many of them displaying handguns and rifles—and some carrying placards with such inscriptions as “Make treason punishable by hanging” and “Tyrants get the rope.”
September 12, 2020
In a Fox News interview discussing the fatal shooting of an Antifa-connected murder suspect by federal marshals, Trump frames it (and praises it) not as law enforcement action against an armed and dangerous subject, but as an extrajudicial execution: “That’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution when you have crime like this.”
September 29, 2020
During his debate with Joe Biden, Trump declines an opportunity to condemn far-right violence, instead telling the Proud Boys, a group implicated in a number of violent incidents, to “stand back and stand by.”
October 30–November 1, 2020
After a Biden campaign bus on a tour in Texas is harassed on the interstate highway by a caravan of forty-some Trump flag-sporting trucks—causing a minor collision, endangering nearby traffic, and forcing the Biden campaign to cancel several events due to safety concerns—Trump tweets a video of the highway “Trump Train” with the comment, “I LOVE TEXAS!” The next day, he tweets, “In my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong,” and slams the FBI’s San Antonio office for investigating the case.
December 19, 2020
Trump invites his supporters to a rally in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021, promising that the gathering—which turned into the attack on the Capitol—“will be wild.”
January 6, 2021
When notified that attendees at his rally near the White House are bringing in weapons, Trump orders the metal detectors removed. “I don’t [fucking] care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me,” he reportedly says.
“We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump tells the angry, energized crowd of his supporters after two months of whipping them into hysteria with lies about a supposedly stolen election. A February 2024 analysis by Tom Joscelyn, Norman Eisen, and Fred Wertheimer finds that while “Trump uttered the word ‘peacefully’ just one time during his speech, which lasted more than an hour, he used variations of the word ‘fight’ 20 times.” (Eighteen of those, moreover, were ad-libbed and not present in the prepared notes for the speech.)
As the Capitol riot erupts, Trump initially resists allowing a statement urging his supporters to stay “peaceful” to be posted on his Twitter account. At 2:24 p.m., when he has already been watching the riot on TV for an hour and when the mob has already broken into the Capitol, he tweets that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country.”
(For a fuller analysis of Trump’s public remarks before and on that day, see the final report of the House January 6th Committee.)
August 6, 2022
In his speech to the Conservative Political Action conference, Trump suggests that the plot to kidnap and possibly kill Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 (which eventually resulted in nine convictions and guilty pleas) was a “fake deal” set up by the FBI—and so was the January 6th insurrection.
August 8, 2022
Following the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the classified documents Trump stole, Trump issues a statement lamenting that his home is “under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” complaining of “prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats,” and asserting that “these are dark times for our nation.” Three days later, on August 11, Trump supporter Ricky Walter Shiffer, who has posted angrily on social media about the search of Mar-a-Lago, opens fire at police at the Cincinnati FBI field office and is killed after an hours-long standoff. (Undeterred, Trump makes even more irresponsible statements about the Mar-a-Lago raid in May 2024, repeatedly amplifying a claim by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene that it was a Biden-authorized FBI assassination attempt.)
November 1, 2022
On a radio show, Trump drops conspiratorial hints about the hammer attack on then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi three days earlier, saying that what’s happening in Pelosi’s household is “weird” and “very sad”—a wink at the conspiracy theory that the attacker was a male prostitute in a sexual relationship with Paul Pelosi.
March 26, 2023
Trump opens the first major rally of his 2024 presidential campaign in Waco, Texas, with “Justice for All,” a recording of the national anthem sung over a phone line by a choir of people in prison for crimes committed on January 6th, including violence against law enforcement officers. Trump declares that “2024 is the final battle, it’s going to be the big one. You put me back in the White House, their reign will be over and America will be a free nation once again.”
September 22, 2023
Trump insinuates that Gen. Mark Milley, whom he appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and who had later been elliptically critical of Trump, should be executed.
September 29, 2023
At the California Republican Party convention, Trump once again makes fun of the attack on Paul Pelosi (who suffered a fractured skull during the assault).
November 23, 2023
In a Veterans Day speech to his supporters, Trump pledges to “root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections.” He also asserts that this “enemy within” will “do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream.” In addition to the violence clearly implied in the promise to “root out” a broadly defined political enemy, this is surely far uglier rhetoric than the words currently causing so many Republicans to hyperventilate.
December 29, 2023
After Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows removes Trump’s name from the primary ballot on the grounds that he is ineligible for the presidency under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, Trump tweets out a link to her biographical information. Her home is swatted the next day.
March 11, 2024
Trump pledges to “Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!” as one of his first acts in office if he is elected. (On an earlier occasion, he expressed openness to pardoning even the members of the Proud Boys imprisoned on sedition charges.)
March 17, 2024
At an Ohio rally that once more features “Justice for All,”Trump refers to the rioters as “hostages” and praises them as “unbelievable patriots.” The alleged persecution of the January 6th rioters becomes a key part of his campaign.
March 29, 2024
Trump shares on social media a video that includes an image of Joe Biden tied up in the back of a pickup truck with a “Trump 2024” bumper sticker.
May 27, 2024
Trump calls his political opponents “Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country.”
ANY LIST LIKE THIS cannot be fully comprehensive because Trump so often figuratively targets people who become literal targets of threats and violence, from the judges in his various civil and criminal cases to election workers like Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman. It’s impossible to know with certainty whether Trump actually intends for these people to be harmed or harassed. However, the pattern of Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and de facto incitement is hard to ignore.
Last month, Donald Trump said America has two enemies—“the outside enemy” and “the enemy from within.” The latter, he asserted, is the “more dangerous” of the two, continuing ominously that the threat could be neutralized, if he were president, by the US military.
That remark hardly exists in isolation. The former president’s often-inflammatory rhetoric has taken an increasingly violent turn in the run-up to his face-off against Kamala Harris.
Critics have, more loudly and consistently than ever before, labeled Trump a fascist, especially in the wake of a recent report that he openly praised Adolf Hitler to White House staff and last week’s hate-filled rally at Madison Square Garden—the same venue where American Nazis rallied in support of the German dictator in 1939.
Though he denies being a Nazi or a fascist, Trump has made it clear that, from his viewpoint, the “enemy from within” includes Democrats and “radical left lunatics,” people who criticize him, and anyone whose actions conflict with his narrow concept of America.
With the presidential election just days away, here are just a few of the many individuals and groups who have been the targets of Trump’s violent rhetoric.
Liz Cheney
Criticizing her foreign policy stances and her endorsement of his opponent, among other issues, Trump called the former Wyoming representative, one of his most outspoken Republican critics, “dumb as a rock” and a “war hawk” at a campaign event on Oct. 31—and then his words grew more charged still.
“Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her,” he said. “Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Mark Milley
Milley served as the chair of Trump’s Joint Chiefs of Staff for some three years, but that didn’t stop the current Republican nominee from suggesting in September 2023 that the retired army general deserved to be executed over a phone call he made to reassure China in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, even though officials in his administration had signed off on the call.
Joe Biden
Trump in March shared a video purportedly shot on a highway in Long Island, New York. The video showed two Trump supporters’ ostentatiously decorated trucks, the latter featuring a decal of President Joe Biden hog-tied, as if kidnapped, on the tailgate.
Mike Pence
Trump made a number of comments that encouraged or condoned violence on Jan. 6, 2021, as his supporters stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to prevent then-Vice President Mike Pence and the Senate from certifying the 2020 election.
“I don‘t f---ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me” Trump said to his team, before delivering his address that day, according to testimony.
In a public tweet, meanwhile, Trump wrote, “Get smart Republicans. FIGHT!”
His rhetoric was no less inflammatory when he spoke to his followers that afternoon: “You’ll never take back our country with weakness,” he told the crowd. “You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
And as rioting was underway, Trump tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify.”
Footage showed Trump’s supporters reading the post and chanting, “Hang Mike Pence!”
Members of the press
Trump has suggested that he would send reporters to prison if they don’t reveal their sources.
“You get the information very easily,” Trump said at a rally in November 2022. “You tell the reporter, ‘Who is it?’ and the reporter will either tell you or not. And if the reporter doesn’t want to tell you, it’s bye-bye. The reporter goes to jail. And when the reporter learns that he’s going to be married in two days to a certain prisoner, that’s extremely strong, tough, and mean, he will say... ‘You know, I think I’m going to give you the information. Here’s the leaker. Get me the hell out of here!’”
Racial justice protesters
As crowds in Minnesota—and across the United States—protested the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in May 2022, Trump took to Twitter to urge further violence against them, sharing a slogan with a racist history: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
When protesters filled the streets around the White House, Trump said, according to former Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s memoir, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” (Trump has denied making the statement.)
Illegal immigrants
One of Trump’s most often-repeated campaign promises has been a vow to come down hard on illegal immigration. Here, too, his rhetoric has become outright menacing.
“Getting them out will be a bloody story,” Trump said at a September rally in Wisconsin, referring to illegal immigrants in Colorado. “They should have never been allowed to come into our country. Nobody checked them.”
Graphic descriptions of killings
Increasingly, Trump describes gruesome scenes of rape and murder to his campaign rally audiences, warning them that “Kamala has imported criminal migrants from prisons and jails, insane asylums and mental institutions from all around the world.”
Before his arena crowd in Manhattan last month, the former president recounted the details of the September 2016 murders by MS-13 gang members of two teenage girls on Long Island.
“They didn’t shoot them. They knifed them and they cut them into little pieces because it was so painful,” he said.
University of California Los Angeles researchers Nikita Savin and Daniel Treisman analyzed 99 of Trump’s speeches from April 2015 to June 2024 and found an upward trend in the frequency of violent vocabulary. They published their results in a working paper in July.
“What’s significant is this very clear over time upward trend since 2015,” Treisman told States Newsroom in an interview in early October.
Savin and Treisman also inspected 127 speeches delivered by major party candidates in the 20 months prior to each U.S. presidential election since 2008.
Trump’s and the others’ speeches were chosen by the same criteria: the last major public speech of each month.
The pair have continued to monitor Trump’s language as part of their working paper.
“I just analyzed the last speech in September in Wisconsin, and that speech contained a higher frequency, or as high a frequency, of violent words as in any of his previous speeches that we’ve looked at,” Treisman said.
‘They’
Using a specialized dictionary of 142 words related to violence, the pair studied Trump’s language for words like “crime,” “war,” “prosecute,” “prison,” “missile,” “death,” “massacre” and “blood.” They also scrutinized for markers of economic and populist content.
Since 2020, Trump’s negative language about “elites” has trended upward, but “the thing on which he’s most distinctive is his use of the pronoun ‘they,’ — and that he’s very high on that compared to other politicians,” Treisman said.
When the research duo expanded the parameters of comparison to various U.S. and world leaders, past and present, they found Trump’s frequency of violent language “exceeds that of any other politician in a democracy that we studied and falls just a little below the level in a selection of Fidel Castro’s May Day speeches.”
Savin and Treisman acknowledge the limitations of their study in that it does not explore why Trump’s speech has changed, or the specific consequences of it. Additionally, a dictionary-based text analysis only measures the frequency of words, “without delving deeper into meanings and contexts,” they wrote.
“It doesn’t pick up violent thoughts expressed with nonviolent words. So for instance, his January 6 speech in 2021 doesn’t rate particularly high on our violence measures because he didn’t use a lot of words like ‘kill,’ ‘death,’ ‘blood’ and so on. He said, ‘Let’s go and walk down to the Capitol,’” Treisman said.
The authors wrote that, “Given the troubling evolution of his vocabulary, more research along these lines is clearly warranted.”
States Newsroom fed 238 of Trump’s social media posts across X and Truth Social into two AI word cloud generators. The posts, from randomly chosen days in August through October, comprised 8,664 words, but boiled down to roughly 1,500 unique words when grouped by repetition.
Trump’s top five words were, unsurprisingly, “Kamala,” “Harris,” “great, “now” and “Trump.”
But making it into the top 75 most used words out of 1,500 were “comrade” in 15th place, “fake” at 23rd on the list, “war” as the 54th most used, “radical” at 61st on the list, and “lyin’” at 72.
‘The enemy from within’
Trump told his supporters in New York City Sunday they are fighting against a “radical left machine” who he said — not for the first time — is the “enemy from within.”
In an Oct. 14 interview, Trump told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that “the enemy from within” are a “bigger problem” than migrants who are “totally destroying our country.”
“We have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics … and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary, by the military,” he responded when Bartiromo asked if he anticipated trouble on Election Day.
On Oct. 12, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform an ad celebrating Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film “Full Metal Jacket,” juxtaposing it with scenes of drag performers and a clip of Admiral Rachel Levine, a physician and, as head of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, the first openly transgender federal official.
The message he posted with the video: “WE WILL NOT HAVE A WOKE MILITARY!”
Trump appears to disagree with any criticism that his campaign uses negative language or themes. On Wednesday, he wrote on Truth Social: “While I am running a campaign of positive solutions to save America, Kamala Harris is running a campaign of hate.”
Recently, his campaign’s personalized fundraising text messages to supporters declare Trump’s “love” for them.
‘Don’t let them eat us’
In the days following the Sept. 10 debate between Trump and Harris, the former president posted on his Truth Social platform a series of AI-generated images depicting cats begging voters to support Trump. “Don’t let them eat us. Vote for Trump,” read one sign held by a litter of orange tabby kittens.
The string of posts followed Trump’s false claim during the debate that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating pet cats and dogs. The rumor began to circulate among Trump supporters ahead of his matchup with Harris, and Trump continued to push the lie.
The small city in Ohio was the target of bomb threats for days afterward, to the point that the state’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine dispatched state troopers to 18 local school buildings.
Rowland, who spoke to States Newsroom in both September and October, pondered whether Trump’s all-in attitude on the cats-and-dogs lie would hurt the former president’s reelection prospects.
“He’s picked this meme that is just so absurd and obviously false,” Rowland said Sept. 13.
Just over a month later, Rowland told States Newsroom, “It hasn’t moved anything. If anything, it’s gone the other direction.” Polling has shown Trump and Harris nearly tied for several weeks.
Rowland said overall, Trump’s recent “lack of coherence and the negative emotions are the things that I think are most striking.”
“He never previously talked about policy in detail, but now there’s almost no discussion of policy at all. Insults have replaced it, in a way,” Rowland said.
“I juxtapose this against the most effective leaders of both parties, people like Ronald Reagan — they really made a case. Now, one could agree or disagree with it. And Barack Obama, when he was running he certainly laid out an agenda, and that’s not what I see at all (in Trump),” Rowland said. “I’ve never seen anything like it in American politics.”
“Donald Trump’s closing message is doubling down on revenge and retribution, attacking his political opponents as the ‘enemy from within,’ and threatening violence against American citizens – including just last night when he suggested that former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney should have ‘nine barrels shooting at her’ and guns ‘trained on her face.’ The people who know Trump best know that this is who Trump is – and that he’s completely unfit to lead. In just a few short days, the American people will make it clear they feel the same.”
TRUMP-VANCE TICKET’S CLOSING MESSAGE: dangerous, violent rhetoric and attacks on American citizens:
Donald Trump said that former Congresswoman Liz Cheney should have guns “trained on her face” and be fired upon, which the Congresswoman said was akin to a death threat.
Trump threatened to weaponize the National Guard and military against American citizens to destroy the “enemy from within.”
JD Vance attempted to lie and cover for Trump’s “enemy from within” comments, before confirming he does “agree with” Trump and attacking American citizens as a bigger threat than any “foreign adversary.”
Vance said “of course” Trump’s plan to put American citizens before a war tribunal doesn’t sound “fascistic” to him.
Vance repeatedly dismissed reports of John Kelly calling Trump a “fascist” and revealing Trump’s praise for Hitler’s generals, saying people should “shut the hell up about what happened four years ago.”
Recent revelations that former President Trump allegedly called for protesters gathered outside the White House in 2020 to be shot are part of a pattern of calling for violence that the 45th president followed throughout his years in office.
Driving the news: "Can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?" Trump allegedly asked about the demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd, according to the forthcoming memoir by former Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
State of play: Trump made statements condoning and encouraging violence throughout his presidency.
July 2017: During a speech to law enforcement officers in Long Island, New York, Trump seemingly encouraged police officers to be rough with people they were arresting, per ABC News. "Please don't be too nice," he told the audience.
August 2017: In the aftermath of the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump failed to unequivocally condemn the violence and said "many sides" were to blame, failing to distinguish between those who participated in the "Unite the Right" rally and those who showed up in opposition to it.
October 2018: While speaking at a Montana campaign rally, Trump publicly praised Montana's then-Rep. Greg Gianforte (R) — the state's current governor — for previously assaulting a reporter. "Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!" Trump said.
October 2019: A New York Times report outlined various strategies Trump had allegedly deliberated to keep migrants away from the U.S. southern border, including a water-filled trench with snakes or alligators and shooting migrants in the legs to slow them down.
May 2020: Trump used violent rhetoric when referring to protests in Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, tweeting, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts." The phrase has a racist history going back to police brutality against Black Americans in the 1960s, per the New York Times.
June 2020: Trump threatened to use the U.S. military to quell Black Lives Matter protests across the country. "If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them," Trump said.
August 2020: Trump expressed interest in sending the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, to confront protesters, per Vox. "We could fix Portland in, I would say, 45 minutes," Trump said.
September 2020: Trump lauded law enforcement officers for killing Michael Forest Reinoehl, a self-described Antifa member suspected of killing a right-wing activist the previous month. "That’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution," Vox reported.
September 2020: When offered the chance to unequivocally condemn white supremacist violence during the first presidential debate, Trump failed to do so, instead telling the far-right Proud Boys that they should "stand back and stand by."
January 2021: At a rally preceding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Trump repeated false claims that the 2020 election had been stolen and told supporters that "we're going to walk down to the Capitol," adding that "you'll never take back our country with weakness."
Go deeper: ... Scoop: Esper says Trump wanted to shoot protesters
A BRIEF HISTORY OF TRUMP’S VIOLENT REMARKS 2015-2024
Here are 40 instances in which the former president incited or praised violence against his fellow citizens.
Below is a partial list of his violent comments, from the 2016 presidential campaign until today.
“Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.” November 22, 2015, in response to a Fox News host asking about a heckler at Trump’s rally in Alabama the day before
“If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, okay? Just knock the hell—I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise.” February 1, 2016, at a rally in Iowa
“I would bring back waterboarding. And I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” February 6, 2016, at a Republican-primary debate
“I’d like to punch him in the face.” February 22, 2016, about a protester who disrupted a Las Vegas rally
“They said to me, ‘What do you think of waterboarding?’ I said, ‘I think it’s great, but I don’t think we go far enough.’ It’s true, it’s true—right? We don’t go far enough. We don’t go far enough.” February 22, 2016, at a rally in Las Vegas
“I think you’d have riots.” March 16, 2016, on what would happen if he wasn’t nominated at the upcoming Republican National Convention
“You also had people that were very fine people on both sides.”
August 15, 2017, speaking at a press conference about the white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia
“Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my guy!” October 18, 2018, referring to then-Representative Greg Gianforte, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for physically assaulting a reporter
“I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump—I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.” March 12, 2019, in an interview with Breitbart News
“When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” May 29, 2020, posted on Twitter during the protests and riots in Minneapolis after George Floyd was murdered
“Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” June 2020, according to former Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s memoir, which described Trump having said this about protesters outside the White House (Trump has denied saying this)
“And I’ll tell you something—that’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution when you have crime like this.” September, 12, 2020, in a Fox News interview, praising police for killing the antifa supporter Michael Reinoehl, who was accused of killing a right-wing protester
“Stand back and stand by.” September 29, 2020, addressing the Proud Boys during a presidential debate
“I don’t fucking care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.” January 6, 2021, just minutes before addressing the crowd at the Ellipse, Trump shouted this to his advance team, according to testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson (who served as assistant to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows during the Trump administration)
“Get smart Republicans. FIGHT!” January 6, 2021, in a tweet before the election certification took place
“You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.” January 6, 2021, in claiming that the election was stolen and urging supporters to march to the Capitol
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” January 6, 2021, in a tweet, while rioters at the Capitol were chanting “Hang Mike Pence”
“We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home, and go home in peace.” January 6, 2021, in a video message to the insurrectionists at the Capitol
“People are so angry at what is taking place. Whatever we can do to help, because the temperature has to be brought down in the country. If it isn’t, terrible things are going to happen.” August 15, 2022, in a Fox News interview about the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago residence, which uncovered boxes containing classified documents
“You take the writer and/or the publisher of the paper … and you say, ‘Who is the leaker? National security.’ And they say, ‘We’re not gonna tell you.’ They say, ‘That’s okay, you’re going to jail.’ And when this person realizes that he is going to be the bride of another prisoner very shortly, he will say, ‘I’d very much like to tell you exactly who that leaker is!’” October 22, 2022, during a Texas rally
“You tell the reporter, ‘Who is it?’ And the reporter will either tell you or not. And if the reporter doesn’t want to tell you, it’s bye-bye, the reporter goes to jail. And when the reporter learns that he’s going to be married in two days to a certain prisoner that’s extremely strong, tough and mean, he will say, ‘You know’ … I think I’m going to give you the information.’” November 7, 2022, during a rally in Ohio
“I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” March 4, 2023, at the Conservative Political Action Committee summit
“What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?” March 24, 2023, in a middle-of-the-night rant on Truth Social
“2024 is the final battle. It’s going to be the big one. You put me back in the White House, their reign will be over and America will be a free nation once again.” March 25, 2023, during a rally in Waco, Texas
“Our enemies are desperate to stop us, because they know we are the only ones who can stop them.” April 27, 2023, during a rally in New Hampshire
“IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” August 4, 2023, in a Truth Social post that U.S. prosecutors flagged as an indication that Trump might try to intimidate witnesses in the federal election-subversion case against him.
“This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.” September 22, 2023, on Truth Social, suggesting that General Mark Milley, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be executed
“Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store. Shot.” September 29, 2023, speaking at the California Republican Party convention
“We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections … The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.” November 11, 2023, during a Veterans Day speech
“Except for day one … After that, I’m not a dictator.” December 5, 2023, during a town hall in Iowa, in response to the Fox News host Sean Hannity asking Trump if he could promise not to abuse power or seek retribution if he wins
“They’re poisoning the blood of our country.” December 16, 2023, referring to illegal immigrants during a New Hampshire rally
“It’ll be bedlam in the country. It’s a very bad thing. It’s a very bad precedent. As we said, it’s the opening of a Pandora’s box.” January 9, 2024, to a group of reporters after a court hearing in which his team argued that presidential immunity should protect him from criminal prosecution for attempting to subvert the 2020 election
“Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!” March 11, 2024, in a Truth Social post promising that he would pardon the January 6 insurrectionists if elected
“If I don’t get elected … it’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.” March 16, 2024, during a speech about the U.S. auto-manufacturing industry in Ohio (Trump’s campaign later said that he was referencing a “bloodbath” for the automaker industry)
“Well, revenge does take time. I will say that. And sometimes revenge can be justified, Phil, I have to be honest.” June 6, 2024, in an interview with Phil McGraw, host of Dr. Phil
“In Colorado, they’re so brazen, they’re taking over sections of the state. And you know, getting them out will be a bloody story. They should have never been allowed to come into our country. Nobody checked them.” September 7, 2024, at a rally in Wisconsin, referring to his mass-deportation plans
C-SPAN
“If you had one really violent day … one rough hour—and I mean real rough—the word will get out, and it will end immediately.” September 29, 2024, proposing a violent crackdown by police to deal with crime, during a rally in Pennsylvania
“I always say, we have two enemies … We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within, and the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia, and all these countries … We have some very bad people; we have some sick people, radical-left lunatics. And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by the National Guard—or, if really necessary, by the military.” October 13, 2024, in a Fox News interview
“It is the enemy from within. And they’re very dangerous—they’re Marxists and Communists and fascists … They’re dangerous for our country. We have China, we have Russia, we have all these countries. If you have a smart president, they can all be handled. The more difficult are, you know, the Pelosis, these people, they’re so sick; they’re so evil.” October 15, 2024, during a Fox News town hall
“That was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions—it’s like, hundreds of thousands—it could’ve been the largest group I’ve ever spoken before.” October 16, 2024, referring to the January 6 insurrection during a Univision town hall
Just 5 Years of Trump's Results (2015-2020)
Aug. 19, 2015: In Boston, after he and his brother beat a sleeping homeless man of Mexican descent with a metal pole, Steven Leader, 30, told police "Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported." The victim, however, was not in the United States illegally. The brothers, who are white, ultimately pleaded guilty to several assault-related charges and were each sentenced to at least two years in prison.
Dec. 5, 2015: After Penn State University student Nicholas Tavella, 19, was charged with "ethnic intimidation" and other crimes for threatening to "put a bullet" in a young Indian man on campus, his attorney argued in court that Tavella was just motivated by "a love of country," not "hate." "Donald Trump is running for President of the United States saying that, 'We've got to check people out more closely,'" Tavella's attorney argued in his defense. Tavella, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to ethnic intimidation and was sentenced to up to two years in prison.
April 28, 2016: When FBI agents arrested 61-year-old John Martin Roos in White City, Oregon, for threatening federal officials, including then-President Barack Obama, they found several pipe bombs and guns in his home. In the three months before his arrest, Roos posted at least 34 messages to Twitter about Trump, repeatedly threatening African Americans, Muslims, Mexican immigrants and the "liberal media," and in court documents, prosecutors noted that the avowed Trump supporter posted this threatening message to Facebook a month earlier: "The establishment is trying to steal the election from Trump. ... Obama is already on a kill list ... Your [name] can be there too." Roos, who is white, has since pleaded guilty to possessing an unregistered explosive device and posting internet threats against federal officials. He was sentenced to more than five years in prison.
June 3, 2016: After 54-year-old Henry Slapnik attacked his African-American neighbors with a knife in Cleveland, he told police "Donald Trump will fix them because they are scared of Donald Trump," according to police reports. Slapnik, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to "ethnic intimidation" and other charges. It's unclear what sentence he received.
Aug. 16, 2016: In Olympia, Washington, 32-year-old Daniel Rowe attacked a white woman and a black man with a knife after seeing them kiss on a popular street. When police arrived on the scene, Rowe professed to being "a white supremacist" and said "he planned on heading down to the next Donald Trump rally and stomping out more of the Black Lives Matter group," according to court documents filed in the case. Rowe, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to charges of assault and malicious harassment, and he was sentenced to more than four years in prison.
Sept. 1, 2016: The then-chief of the Bordentown, New Jersey, police department, Frank Nucera, allegedly assaulted an African American teenager who was handcuffed. Federal prosecutors said the attack was part of Nucera's "intense racial animus," noting in federal court that "within hours" of the assault, Nucera was secretly recorded saying "Donald Trump is the last hope for white people." The 60-year-old Nucera, who is white, was indicted by a federal grand jury on three charges, including committing a federal hate crime and lying to the FBI about the alleged assault. He was convicted of lying to the FBI, but a jury deadlocked on the other charges, so Nucera is now awaiting a second trial. He has pleaded not guilty.
September 2016: After 40-year-old Mark Feigin of Los Angeles was arrested for posting anti-Muslim and allegedly threatening statements to a mosque's Facebook page, his attorney argued in court that the comments were protected by the First Amendment because Feigin was "using similar language and expressing similar views" to "campaign statements from then-candidate Donald Trump." Noting that his client "supported Donald Trump," attorney Caleb Mason added that "Mr. Feigin's comments were directed toward a pressing issue of public concern that was a central theme of the Trump campaign and the 2016 election generally: the Islamic roots of many international and U.S. terrorist acts." Feigin, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of sending harassing communications electronically. He was sentenced to probation.
Oct. 10, 2016: Police in Albany, New York, arrested 55-year-old Todd Warnken for threatening an African-American woman at a local grocery store “because of her race,” according to a police report. Warnken allegedly told the victim, “Trump is going to win, and if you don’t like it I’m gonna beat your ass you n----r,” the police report said. He ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in the case and completed a local “restorative justice program,” allowing the charges against him to be dismissed, according to the district attorney’s office.
Oct. 13, 2016: After the FBI arrested three white Kansas men for plotting to bomb an apartment complex in Garden City, Kansas, where many Somali immigrants lived, one of the men's attorneys insisted to a federal judge that the plot was "self-defensive" because the three men believed "that if Donald Trump won the election, President Obama would not recognize the validity of those results, that he would declare martial law, and that at that point militias all over the country would have to step in." Then, after a federal grand jury convicted 47-year-old Patrick Stein and the two other men of conspiracy-related charges, Stein's attorney argued for a lighter sentence based on "the backdrop" of Stein's actions: Trump had become "the voice of a lost and ignored white, working-class set of voters" like Stein, and the "climate" at the time could propel someone like Stein to "go to 11," attorney Jim Pratt said in court. Stein and his two accomplices were each sentenced to at least 25 years in prison.
Nov. 3, 2016: In Tampa, Florida, David Howard threatened to burn down the house next to his "simply because" it was being purchased by a Muslim family, according to the Justice Department. He later said under oath that while he harbored a years-long dislike for Muslims, the circumstances around the home sale were "the match that lit the wick." He cited Trump's warnings about immigrants from majority-Muslim countries. "[With] the fact that the president wants these six countries vetted, everybody vetted before they come over, there's a concern about Muslims," Howard said. Howard, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation, and the 59-year-old was sentenced to eight months in prison.
Nov. 10, 2016: A 23-year-old man from High Springs, Florida, allegedly assaulted an unsuspecting Hispanic man who was cleaning a parking lot outside of a local food store. "[H]e was suddenly struck in the back of the head," a police report said of the victim. "[The victim] asked the suspect why he hit him, to which the suspect replied, 'This is for Donald Trump.' The suspect then grabbed [the victim] by the jacket and proceeded to strike him several more times," according to the report. Surveillance video of the incident "completely corroborated [the victim's] account of events," police said. The suspect was arrested on battery charges, but the case was dropped after the victim decided not to pursue the matter, police said. Efforts by ABC News to reach the victim for further explanation were not successful.
Nov. 12, 2016: In Grand Rapids, Michigan, while attacking a cab driver from East Africa, 23-year-old Jacob Holtzlander shouted racial epithets and repeatedly yelled the word, "Trump," according to law enforcement records. Holtzlander, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of ethnic intimidation, and he was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
Nov. 16, 2016: Police in San Antonio, Texas, arrested 32-year-old Dusty Paul Lacombe after he and a companion assaulted a black man at a convenience store. According to a police report, Lacombe “stepped out of a vehicle and walked to the [victim] and stated he was a Trump supporter and swung at him several times.” The victim “was punched in the face several times,” the police report said. When police arrived, Lacombe – who “smelled strongly of alcohol” – “stated something about Trump and admitted to fighting with [the victim],” the police report noted. Lacombe was charged with misdemeanor assault and ultimately received “deferred adjudication,” which is akin to probation. Lacombe ultimately pleaded “no contest” to the charge and was granted “deferred adjudication” with a $450 fine.
Jan. 3, 2017: In Chicago, four young African-Americans -- sisters Brittany and Tanishia Covington, Jordan Hill and Tesfaye Cooper -- tied up a white, mentally disabled man and assaulted him, forcing him to recite the phrases "F--k Donald Trump" and "F--k white people" while they broadcast the attack online. Each of them ultimately pleaded guilty to committing a hate crime and other charges, and three of them were sentenced to several years in prison.
Jan. 25, 2017: At JFK International Airport in New York, a female Delta employee, wearing a hijab in accordance with her Muslim faith, was "physically and verbally" attacked by 57-year-old Robin Rhodes of Worcester, Mass., "for no apparent reason," prosecutors said at the time. When the victim asked Brown what she did to him, he replied: "You did nothing, but ... [Expletive] Islam. [Expletive] ISIS. Trump is here now. He will get rid of all of you." Rhodes ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of "menacing," and he was sentenced to probation.
Feb. 19, 2017: After 35-year-old Gerald Wallace called a mosque in Miami Gardens, Florida, and threatened to "shoot all y'all," he told the FBI and police that he made the call because he "got angry" from a local TV news report about a terrorist act. At a rally in Florida the day before, Trump falsely claimed that Muslim refugees had just launched a terrorist attack in Sweden.
Wallace's attorney, Katie Carmon, later tried to convince a federal judge that the threat to kill worshippers could be "protected speech" due to the "very distinctly political climate" at the time. "There are courts considering President Trump's travel ban ... and the president himself has made some very pointed statements about what he thinks about people of this descent," Carmon argued in court.
Wallace, who is African American, ultimately pleaded guilty to obstructing the free exercise of his victims' religious beliefs, and he was sentenced to one year in prison.
Feb. 23, 2017: Kevin Seymour and his partner Kevin price were riding their bicycles in Key West, Florida, when a man on a moped, 30-year-old Brandon Davis of North Carolina, hurled anti-gay slurs at them and "intentionally" ran into Seymour's bike, shouting, "You live in Trump country now," according to police reports and Davis' attorney. Davis ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of battery evidencing prejudice, but in court, he expressed remorse and was sentenced to four years of probation.
May 3, 2017: In South Padre Island, Texas, 35-year-old Alexander Jennes Downing of Waterford, Connecticut, was captured on cellphone video taunting and aggressively approaching a Muslim family, repeatedly shouting, "Donald Trump will stop you!" and other Trump-related remarks. Police arrested downing, of Waterford, Connecticut, for public intoxication. It's unclear what came of the charge.
May 11, 2017: Authorities arrested Steven Martan of Tucson, Arizona, after he left three threatening messages at the office Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz. In one message, he told McSally he was going to "blow your brains out," and in another he told her that her "days are numbered." He later told FBI agents "that he was venting frustrations with Congresswoman McSally's congressional votes in support of the President of the United States," according to charging documents. Martan's attorney, Walter Goncalves Jr., later told a judge that Martan had "an alcohol problem" and left the messages "after becoming intoxicated" and "greatly upset" by news that McSally "agreed with decisions by President Donald Trump." Martan, 58, has since pleaded guilty to three counts of retaliating against a federal official and was sentenced to more than one year in prison.
May 23, 2017: George Jarjour and his brother, Sam Jarjour, were getting gas at a station in Bellevue, Washington, when 56-year-old Kenneth Sjarpe started yelling at them to “go back to your country,” according to a police report. Sjarpe then drove his truck toward the brothers, rolled down his window, and declared, “F--k you, you Muslims,” and “I’ll f---ing kill you,” the police report stated. When police officers interviewed Sjarpe the next day, according to the report, he “became animated and his voice got louder as he started talking about how he hated those people… [particularly] Iranians, Indians and Middle Easterners.” And, the report recounted, “He said he supports Trump in keeping them out.” A week later, Sjarpe threatened another man at a local business, yelling, “I hate foreigners,” according to a police report. He was arrested days later. Sjarpe ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of malicious harassment and was sentenced to six months behind bars.
Oct. 22, 2017: A 44-year-old California man threatened to kill Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., for her frequent criticism of Trump and her promise to "take out" the president. Anthony Scott Lloyd left a voicemail at the congresswoman's Washington office, declaring: "If you continue to make threats towards the president, you're going to wind up dead, Maxine. Cause we'll kill you." After pleading guilty to one count of threatening a U.S. official, Lloyd asked the judge for leniency, saying he suffered from addiction-inducing mental illness and became "far too immersed in listening to polarizing political commentators and engaging in heated political debates online." His lawyer put it this way to the judge: "Mr. Lloyd was a voracious consumer of political news online, on television and on radio … [that are] commonly viewed as 'right wing,' unconditionally supportive of President Trump, and fiercely critical of anyone who opposed President Trump's policies." The judge sentenced Lloyd to six months of house arrest and three years of probation.
Feb. 21, 2018: A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted a former U.S. diplomat – William Patrick Syring, 60, of Arlington, Virginia – on several counts for threatening employees of the Arab American Institute. He had previously served nearly a year in prison for threats he made in emails and voicemails to the same organization in 2006, but soon after serving his time he began emailing the organization again. In January 2017, a week after Trump was inaugurated, Syring sent one email saying: "It's time for ethnic cleansing of Arabs in America. Elections have consequences. President Trump will cleanse America of [AAI President James] Zogby … and all Arab American terrorists." Within months, he began sending particularly “charged” rhetoric that constituted “a true threat” – and emails like the one from January 2017 reflect the type of language that was “part and parcel of” his threats, prosecutors said in court documents. In May 2019, a federal jury convicted Syring on all 14 counts against him, including seven hate-crime charges and seven interstate-threat charges. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
March 1, 2018: The FBI arrested 24-year-old Daniel Frisiello of Beverly, Massachusetts, for sending envelopes with white powder to at least five politically-charged locations around the country. One of those envelopes was addressed to “Donald Trump Jr.” in New York, and it included a typed letter stating, “You are an awful, awful person, I am surprised that your father lets you speak on TV.” Trump Jr.’s then-wife received and then opened the letter. The FBI ultimately determined Frisiello was responsible for a rash of threatening letters sent to various public servants since 2015. In 2016, Frisiello sent white powder to Trump’s family in what federal authorities called “a bid to persuade [Trump] to drop out of the presidential race.” Frisiello then sent white powder to Trump Jr. in early 2018 “because of the victim’s connection with his father,” federal authorities said. Frisiello ultimately pleaded guilty to 13 federal counts of mailing a threat. He was sentenced to five years’ probation, including one year of home confinement, after even prosecutors acknowledged there were “unique circumstances concerning Mr. Frisiello’s mental and emotional conditions,” as they said in court documents.
April 6, 2018: The FBI arrested 38-year-old Christopher Michael McGowan of Roanoke, Virginia, for allegedly posting a series of Twitter threats against Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., over several months. In one posting in December 2017, McGowan wrote to Goodlatte: "I threatened to kill you if you help Trump violate the constitution," according to charging documents. In another alleged post, the self-described Army veteran wrote: "If Trump tries to fire [special counsel Robert] Mueller I WILL make an attempt to execute a citizens arrest against [Goodlatte] and I will kill him if he resist." In subsequent statements to police, he said he drinks too much, was "hoping to get someone's attention over his concerns about the current status of our country," and did not actually intend to harm Goodlatte, court documents recount. A federal grand jury has indicted McGowan on one count of transmitting a threat over state lines, and it's unclear if he has entered a plea as he awaits trial.
June 8, 2018: Federal authorities arrested Nicholas Bukoski of Anne Arundel County, Maryland, for threatening to kill Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California. “You wouldn’t want to be caught off guard when I use my second amendment protected firearms to rid the world of you,” Bukowski wrote to Sanders via Instagram on March, 24, 2018. Two minutes later, he wrote to Harris saying he will “make sure you and your radical lefty friends never get back in power … because you won’t make it to see that day.” At a mental treatment facility shortly after his arrest, he said, “He was watching the news and social media, which made him want to send the threats. He stated that he was frustrated with liberals and he is very supportive of the current president,” court documents signed by Bukoski recount. Other court documents describe Bukoski’s criminal past unrelated to politics, including a series of arsons he committed in 2017 and early 2018 and an armed robbery he committed in January 2018. In the most recent case involving threats to lawmakers, he ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting interstate threats and was sentenced to six months in prison.
July 6, 2018: Martin Astrof, 75, approached a volunteer at the campaign office of Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., in Suffolk County, New York, and "state[d] he was going to kill supporters of U.S. congressman Lee Zeldin and President Donald Trump," according to charging documents. Astrof was arrested and ultimately pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment. He was sentenced to one year of probation.
August 2018: After the Boston Globe called on news outlets around the country to resist what it called "Trump's assault on journalism," the Boston Globe received more than a dozen threatening phone calls. "You are the enemy of the people," the alleged caller, 68-year-old Robert Chain of Encino, California, told a Boston Globe employee on Aug. 22. "As long as you keep attacking the President, the duly elected President of the United States ... I will continue to threat[en], harass, and annoy the Boston Globe." A week later, authorities arrested Chain on threat-related charges. After a hearing in his case, he told reporters, "America was saved when Donald J. Trump was elected president." Chain has pleaded guilty to seven threat-related charges, and he is awaiting sentencing.
Oct. 4, 2018: The Polk County Sheriff's Office in Florida arrested 53-year-old James Patrick of Winter Haven, Florida, for allegedly threatening "to kill Democratic office holders, members of their families and members of both local and federal law enforcement agencies," according to a police report. In messages posted online, Patrick detailed a "plan" for his attacks, which he said he would launch if then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh was not confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, the police report said. Seeking Patrick's release from jail after his arrest, Patrick's attorney, Terri Stewart, told a judge that her client's "rantings" were akin to comments from "a certain high-ranking official" -- Trump. The president had "threatened the North Korean people -- to blow them all up. It was on Twitter," Stewart said, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Patrick has been charged with making a written threat to kill or injure, and he has pleaded not guilty. His trial is pending.
Late October 2018: Over the course of a week, Florida man Cesar Sayoc allegedly mailed at least 15 potential bombs to prominent critics of Trump and members of the media. Sayoc had been living in a van plastered with pro-Trump stickers, and he had posted several pro-Trump messages on social media. Federal prosecutors have accused him of "domestic terrorism," and Sayoc has since pleaded guilty to 65 counts, including use of a weapon of mass destruction. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. "We believe the president's rhetoric contributed to Mr. Sayoc's behavior," Sayoc's attorney told the judge at sentencing.
Oct. 21, 2018: While Bruce M. Alexander of Tampa, Florida, was flying on a Southwest Airlines flight from Houston, Texas, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, he assaulted a woman by “reaching around the seat” in front of him and “offensively touching” her, he acknowledged in court documents. When federal authorities then arrested him, he “stated that the President of the United States says it’s ok to grab women by their private parts,” an FBI agent wrote in court documents. Alexander ultimately pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor count of simple assault and was sentenced to two days behind bars.
Nov. 3, 2018: Police in Tucson, Arizona, arrested 42-year-old Daniel Brito of Rockville, Maryland, on a robbery charge after he allegedly stole a Tucson man’s “Make America Great Again” hat and punched the victim several times. When a police officer responded to the scene, Brito told the officer, “I saw this guy with a Trump hat walk by and think about, ‘You know what, f--k him,” according to a police report. Brito later told two other officers that he believed the victim was a “Neo-nazi Jew hater” because the victim supported Trump, another police report said.
Dec. 4, 2018: Michael Brogan, 51, of Brooklyn, New York, left a voicemail at an unidentified U.S. Senator's office in Washington insisting, "I'm going to put a bullet in ya. … You and your constant lambasting of President Trump. Oh, reproductive rights, reproductive rights." He later told an FBI agent that before leaving the voicemail he became "very angry" by "an internet video of the Senator, including the Senator's criticism of the President of the United States as well as the Senator's views on reproductive rights." "The threats were made to discourage the Senator from criticizing the President," the Justice Department said in a later press release. Brogan has since pleaded guilty to one count of threatening a U.S. official, and he is awaiting sentencing.
Jan. 17, 2019: Stephen Taubert of Syracuse, New York, was arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police for threatening to kill Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and for threatening to "hang" former President Barack Obama. Taubert used "overtly bigoted, hateful language" in his threats, according to federal prosecutors. On July 20, 2018, Taubert called the congresswoman's Los Angeles office to say he would find her at public events and kill her and her entire staff. In a letter to the judge just days before Taubert's trial began, his defense attorney, Courtenay McKeon, noted: "During that time period, Congresswoman Waters was embroiled in a public feud with the Trump administration. … On June 25, 2018, in response to Congresswoman Waters' public statements, President Trump tweeted: 'Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has … just called for harm to supporters … of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!'" As McKeon insisted to the judge: "This context is relevant to the case." A federal jury ultimately convicted Taubert on three federal charges, including retaliating against a federal official and making a threat over state lines. He was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.
Jan. 22, 2019: David Boileau of Holiday, Florida, was arrested by the Pasco County Sheriff's Office for allegedly burglarizing an Iraqi family's home and "going through" their mailbox, according to a police report. After officers arrived at the home, Boileau "made several statements of his dislike for people of Middle Eastern descent," the report said. "He also stated if he doesn't get rid of them, Trump will handle it." The police report noted that a day before, Boileau threw screws at a vehicle outside the family's house. On that day, Boileau allegedly told police, "We'll get rid of them one way or another." Boileau, 58, has since pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of trespassing, and he was sentenced to 90 days in jail.
Feb. 15, 2019: The FBI in Maryland arrested a Marine veteran and U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant, Christopher Paul Hasson, who they said was stockpiling weapons and "espoused" racist and anti-immigrant views for years as he sought to "murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country." In court documents, prosecutors said the 49-year-old "domestic terrorist" compiled a "hit list" of prominent Democrats. Two months later, while seeking Hasson's release from jail before trial, his public defender, Elizabeth Oyer, told a federal judge: "This looks like the sort of list that our commander-in-chief might have compiled while watching Fox News in the morning. … Is it legitimately frustrating that offensive language and ideology has now become part of our national vocabulary? Yes, it is very frustrating. But … it is hard to differentiate it from the random musings of someone like Donald Trump who uses similar epithets in his everyday language and tweets." Hasson ultimately pleaded guilty to federal weapons-related charges, and he was sentenced to more than 13 years in federal prison.
Feb. 15, 2019: Police in Falmouth, Massachusetts, arrested 41-year-old Rosiane Santos after she "verbally assault[ed]" a man for wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat in a Mexican restaurant and then "violently push[ed] his head down," according to police reports. Apparently intoxicated, "she stated that [the victim] was a 'motherf----r' for supporting Trump," one of the responding officers wrote. "She also stated that he shouldn't be allowed in a Mexican restaurant with that." Santos was in the United States unlawfully, federal authorities said. Police arrested her on charges of "simple assault" and disorderly conduct. She has since admitted in local court that there are "sufficient facts" to warrant charges, and she has been placed on a form of probation.
Feb. 25, 2019: An 18-year-old student at Edmond Santa Fe High School in Edmond, Oklahoma, was captured on cellphone video "confronting a younger classmate who [was] wearing a 'Make America Great Again' hat and carrying a 'Trump' flag," according to a press release from the local school system. "The [older] student then proceeds to grab the flag and knock the hat off of his classmate's head." The 18-year-old student was charged in local court with assault and battery, according to Edmond City Attorney Steve Murdock. The student has since pleaded guilty and was placed on probation, Murdock added.
March 16, 2019: Anthony Comello, 24, of Staten Island, New York, was taken into custody for allegedly killing Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali, the reputed head of the infamous Gambino crime family. It marked the first mob boss murder in New York in 30 years, law enforcement officials told ABC News the murder may have stemmed from Comello's romantic relationship with a Cali family member. Court documents since filed in state court by Comello's defense attorney, Robert Gottlieb, said Comello suffers from mental defect and was a believer in the "conspiratorial fringe right-wing political group" QAnon. In addition, Gottlieb wrote: "Beginning with the election of President Trump in November 2016, Anthony Comello's family began to notice changes to his personality. … Mr. Comello became certain that he was enjoying the protection of President Trump himself, and that he had the president's full support. Mr. Comello grew to believe that several well-known politicians and celebrities were actually members of the Deep State, and were actively trying to bring about the destruction of America." Comello has been charged with one count of murder and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon. His trial is pending, and he has pleaded not guilty.
April 5, 2019: The FBI arrested a 55-year-old man from upstate New York for allegedly threatening to kill Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., one of the first two Muslim women elected to the U.S. Congress. She is an outspoken critic of Trump, and Trump has frequently launched public attacks against her and three other female lawmakers of color. Two weeks before his arrest, Patrick Carlineo Jr. allegedly called Omar's office in Washington labeling the congresswoman a "terrorist" and declaring: "I'll put a bullet in her f----ing skull." When an FBI agent then traced the call to Carlineo and interviewed him, Carlineo "stated that he was a patriot, that he loves the President, and that he hates radical Muslims in our government," according to the FBI agent's summary of the interview. Federal prosecutors charged Carlineo with threatening to assault and murder a United States official. He has since pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to one year in prison.
April 13, 2019: 27-year-old Jovan Crawford, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, and 25-year-old Scott Roberson Washington, D.C., assaulted and robbed a black man wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat while walking through his suburban Maryland neighborhood. Before punching and kicking him, "The two suspects harassed [the victim] about the hat and asked why he was wearing it. [The victim] told them he has his own beliefs and views," according to charging documents filed after their arrest by Montgomery County, Maryland, police. Crawford later received a text message noting that, "They jumped some trump supporter," the charging documents said. Crawford and Roberson have since pleaded guilty to assault charges. They were each sentenced to at least one year in prison.
April 18, 2019: The FBI arrested John Joseph Kless of Tamarac, Florida, for calling the Washington offices of three prominent Democrats and threatening to kill each of them. At his home, authorities found a loaded handgun in a backpack, an AR-15 rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. In later pleading guilty to one charge of transmitting threats over state lines, Kless admitted that in a threatening voicemail targeting Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., he stated: "You won't f---ing tell Americans what to say, and you definitely don't tell our president, Donald Trump, what to say." Tlaib, a vocal critic of Trump, was scheduled to speak in Florida four days later. Kless was awaiting sentencing. In a letter to the federal judge, he said he "made a very big mistake," never meant to hurt anyone, and "was way out of line with my language and attitude." Kless was sentenced to one year behind bars.
April 24, 2019: The FBI arrested 30-year-old Matthew Haviland of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, for allegedly sending a series of violent and threatening emails to a college professor in Massachusetts who publicly expressed support for abortion rights and strongly criticized Trump. In one of 28 emails sent to the professor on March 10, 2019, Haviland allegedly called the professor "pure evil" and said "all Democrats must be eradicated," insisting the country now has "a president who's taking our country in a place of more freedom rather than less." In another email the same day, Haviland allegedly wrote the professor: "I will rip every limb from your body and … I will kill every member of your family." According to court documents, Haviland's longtime friend later told the FBI that "within the last year, Haviland's views regarding abortion and politics have become more extreme … at least in part because of the way the news media portrays President Trump." Haviland has since pleaded guilty to charges of cyberstalking and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce. He is awaiting sentencing.
June 5, 2019: The FBI arrested a Utah man for allegedly calling the U.S. Capitol more than 2,000 times over several months and threatening to kill Democratic lawmakers, whom he said were "trying to destroy Trump's presidency." "I am going to take up my second amendment right, and shoot you liberals in the head," 54-year-old Scott Brian Haven allegedly stated in one of the calls on Oct. 18, 2018, according to charging documents. When an FBI agent later interviewed Haven, he "explained the phone calls were made during periods of frustration with the way Democrats were treating President Trump," the charging documents said. The FBI visit, however, didn't stop Haven from making more threats, including: On March 21, 2019, he called an unidentified U.S. senator's office to say that if Democrats refer to Trump as Hitler again he will shoot them, and two days later he called an unidentified congressman's office to say he "was going to take [the congressman] out … because he is trying to remove a duly elected President." A federal grand jury has since charged Haven with one count of transmitting a threat over state lines. Haven has since pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting a threat over state lines. He was sentenced to time served.
Aug. 3, 2019: A gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people and injuring 24 others. The FBI labeled the massacre an act of "domestic terrorism," and police determined that the alleged shooter, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, posted a lengthy anti-immigrant diatribe online before the attack. "We attribute that manifesto directly to him," according to El Paso police chief Greg Allen. Describing the coming assault as "a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas," the screed's writer said "the media" would "blame Trump's rhetoric" for the attack but insisted his anti-immigrant views "predate Trump" -- an apparent acknowledgement that at least some of his views align with some of Trump's public statements. The writer began his online essay by stating that he generally "support[s]" the previous writings of the man who killed 51 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand earlier this year. In that case, the shooter in New Zealand said he absolutely did not support Trump as "a policy maker and leader" -- but "[a]s a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose? Sure." Crusius has been charged with capital murder by the state of Texas.
Aug. 16, 2019: The FBI arrested Eric Lin, 35, of Clarksburg, Maryland, for sending threatening and hate-filled messages over Facebook vowing to kill a Miami-area woman and “all Hispanics in Miami and other places,” as the Justice Department described it. Over two months, the woman received 150 pages’ worth of messages from Lin, the FBI said. In June 2019, Lin allegedly wrote: “In 3 short years your entire Race your entire culture will perish only then after I kill your [epithet] family will I permit you to Die by Hanging on Metal Wire.” A month later, on July 19, 2019, he allegedly wrote: “I Thank God everday President Donald John Trump is President and that he will launch a Racial War and Crusade to keep the n----rs, S---s, and Muslims and any dangerous non-White or Ethnically or Culturally Foreign group ‘In Line.’” On his Facebook account, Lin says he "Studied at Trump University," and he repeatedly praises Trump for, among other things, “fomenting racial hatred” and “Making Racism Ok Again.” At the same time, a few of his posts seem to praise Democrats and minorities. In January, Lin pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting a threatening communication. He has yet to be sentenced.
Aug. 21, 2019: Nathan Semans of Humphreys County, Tennessee, was arrested by state law enforcement for allegedly emailing a threat to a local TV station that demanded the station broadcast a certain story. “Look if you don’t run story I’m going to state capital to blow someone’s brains out,” the email stated. The email then added in part: “I don’t look good at the moment cause the tyranny of what trump did … I’m sick of this nonsense and bologna hanging around that trumps [sic] the perfect American, hallelujah against Trump.” Semans has been charged with one count of making terrorist threats, and his trial is pending. It’s unclear if he has entered an initial plea.
Oct. 7, 2019: A woman driving in Moorhead, Minnesota, called police after 27-year-old Joseph Schumacher of North Dakota allegedly rolled down his window and “began yelling at the female expressing his dislike for the political bumper sticker [she] had displayed on her car,” according to police reports. Schumacher then allegedly pointed to the “Trump Pence” bumper sticker on his own vehicle “and further expressed his difference in national political views” before “brandishing a pistol” inside his vehicle, police said. Schumacher was ultimately arrested on three misdemeanor charges, including disorderly conduct that could “reasonably arouse alarm.” He ultimately pleaded guilty to the disorderly conduct charge and a “gross misdemeanor” charge of carrying a weapon without a permit. He was sentenced to a year behind bars.
Oct. 25, 2019: The FBI arrested Jan Peter Meister of Tucson, Arizona, for threatening to kill House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, D-California. Three weeks earlier, he left a voicemail at Schiff’s office in Washington, D.C, promising to “blow your brains out.” According to court documents filed in the case, Meister told FBI agents that “he strongly dislikes the Democrats, and feels they are to blame for the country's political issues.” In other court documents, Meister’s attorney, Bradley Roach, noted that the charge his client ultimately accepted “involves threats of injury of death against a political figure who figures very prominently in the ongoing impeachment of President Trump.” Meister has pleaded guilty to one count of threatening a U.S. official. A plea agreement with prosecutors calls for Meister to be sentenced to time already served.
Oct. 26, 2019: During a Collier County fair in Florida, a teenage girl allegedly assaulted a man dressed as Trump. “While standing in line [with my wife and stepdaughter] waiting our turn to go in to the haunted house exhibit, [she] … walked over to me and punched me in my left jaw. She laughed and ran back to her place in line,” the man told police, according a police report of the incident. The unidentified girl’s “sole motivation was to strike ‘Trump,’” and a video of the incident was posted on social media, the police report added. The girl was issued a civil citation and ordered to appear in court, according to the Collier County sheriff’s office.
Nov. 1, 2019: Clifton Blackwell, 61, of Milwaukee was arrested by local police after allegedly throwing acid on a Peruvian-American’s face and accusing him of being inside the United States illegally. Before attacking the victim outside of a Mexican restaurant, Blackwell allegedly asked the victim “Why you invade my country?” and “Why don’t you respect my laws?” The attack was captured on video by surveillance cameras, and the victim suffered second-degree burns on his face and neck. When police then searched Blackwell’s home, they found gun parts and “three letters addressed to President Donald Trump,” a police report noted. And when police interviewed an employee at a grocery store frequented by Blackwell, the employee told police that Blackwell “many times talked about his political support for President Trump,” according to a police report. “She stated she was even warned by the security guard James to not talk about political issued when [Blackwell] is in the store because of how he acts.” Blackwell was charged with first-degree reckless injury during a hate crime. He pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
Nov. 6, 2019: Lawrence K. Garcia of the Albuquerque, New Mexico, area was arrested by the FBI for allegedly threatening to kill local law enforcement and bomb a U.S. bank’s offices. In a phone call to the bank, Garcia said, “If Donald J. Trump doesn’t step down by my birthday, the day after, we shall declare war against the devil. … [S]o Donald J. Trump you are going to bow to the American people,” according to charging documents filed in the case. A federal grand jury indicted Garcia on one count of communicating a threat over state lines, but he has a history of mental illness and a federal judge later determined he “is not presently competent to stand trial.” Garcia was placed into federal custody to receive treatment.
Feb. 11, 2020: Patrick Bradley, 34, of Windham, N.H., was arrested by local police for allegedly assaulting a pro-Trump teenager on the day of New Hampshire’s primary election for presidential nominees. According to police, “Bradley had exited the voting polls located inside Windham High School and was walking by a TRUMP campaign tent occupied by several campaign supporters / workers. As he passed by the tent Bradley slapped [the] 15-year old juvenile across the face. He then assaulted two other adults who attempted to intercede. Bradley was also accused of throwing TRUMP campaign signs and attempting to knock over the aforementioned tent.” Bradley was charged with three misdemeanor counts of simple assault and one count of disorderly conduct. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
Feb. 19, 2020: The FBI arrested Salvatore Lippa II, 57, of upstate New York for allegedly threatening to kill Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, the top Democrat in the Senate, and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. In late January, he left a voicemail at Schiff’s office in Washington, D.C., calling Schiff a “scumbag” and threatening to “put a bullet in your [expletive] forehead,” according to charging documents. Two weeks later, he allegedly left a voicemail at Schumer’s office in Albany, New York, saying “somebody wants to assassinate you.” When federal authorities confronted Lippa, he “admitted that he made the threatening calls because he was upset about the impeachment proceedings” targeting Trump. Lippa has been charged with threatening to kill a U.S. official and is currently engaged in plea negotiations with the government, according to court records.
April 30, 2020: A Pennsylvania man who fled Cuba nearly two decades ago, Alazo Alexander, allegedly opened fire on the Cuban embassy in Washington, D.C. When police officers first arrested Alexander, he was holding an American flag and yelling nonsensical statements, according to charging documents filed in the case. He had also unsuccessfully tried to burn a Cuban flag that had several phrases written on it, including, “Trump 2020.” After his arrest, Alexander told authorities he had heard voices in his head and believed certain Cubans were trying to kill him, so he “wanted to get them before they got him,” the charging documents said. His wife later told authorities that Garcia was previously diagnosed with a delusional disorder. Garcia has been charged with three firearms-related offenses, including one count of using a deadly weapon to attack a foreign official. It’s unclear if he’s entered an initial plea.
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