Washington: A day after protesters forced Donald Trump to cancel his rally in Chicago, the Republican presidential front-runner today faced another protest as a man tried to reach the stage by breaching the security buffer while he was speaking at a campaign event in Ohio city.
The US Secret Service agents, however, immediately scrambled onto the stage and surrounded the Republican presidential candidate at the campaign rally in Dayton, his first public address after the Chicago rally was cancelled due to the protest.
Secret Service agents immediately removed the protester.
Trump was speaking at the rally when he was briefly surrounded by Secret Service agents, who formed a protective barrier around him.
Trump, who continued with his speech after the brief interruption, alleged that by succeeding in stopping him to address the Chicago rally last night, the protestors have infringed upon his freedom of speech.
Alleging that the Chicago protest was “planned and “organised” and professionally done, Trump came out in support of his ever increasing supporters by asserting that they did not cause any problem at the Chicago rally.
“They were taunted, they were harassed by these other people — by the way, some represented Bernie, our communist friend,” Trump said.
Referring to the fact that some of the protestors at the Chicago rally were chanting “Bernie, Bernie”, Trump urged the Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to calm down his supporters.
“With Bernie, he should really get up and say to his people, ‘stop, stop.’ Not me,” Trump said. Sanders has condemned the Chicago violence and denied that they were his supporters.
Trump cancelled his campaign rally in Chicago citing security concerns after hundreds of people gathered at the arena to protest against his ‘politics of hatred’ and scuffled with his supporters in the largest-ever demonstration against the Republican presidential front-runner.
Addressing the massive rally in Dayton, Trump slammed all those who said that he should take responsibility for the unrest at his rallies and tell them to be nicer.
“My people are nice, folks. My people are great,” he said amidst loud applause from the supporters.
“We have got to change our thinking. Yeah and if there’s a group out there, just throw them the hell out,” he said, as he noticed a group of protesters at the rally.
“We’re all together and we want to get along with everybody, but when they have organised, professionally staged wise guys we’ve got to fight back, we’ve got to fight back,” Trump said.
Meanwhile, In a statement, the Trump Campaign said the Chicago Police Department Commander George Devereux was “informed of everything before it happened”.
“We have received great credit from everyone for cancelling this event. Nobody was injured and crowds disbanded quickly and peacefully. It has been termed “really good management and leadership under great pressure!” the campaign said.
“It would have been easier for Trump to have spoken, but he decided, in the interest of everyone’s safety, to postpone the event,” the statement said.
Following the protest and violence at Chicago rally, both his rivals in the GOP and the opposition Democratic party have slammed him for his “provocative” language at his rallies.
“The person most responsible for what happened in Chicago last night is Donald Trump. Time and again we’ve watched the Republican front-runner rile up his supporters with calls to violence, sometimes subtle, sometimes explicit, usually directed at minorities, and always un-presidential,” said Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
“The divisive rhetoric we are seeing should be of grave concern to us all. We all have our differences, and we know many people across the country feel angry,” said Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner.
“When the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence, to punch people in the face, the predictable consequence of that is that is escalates,” said Senator Ted Cruz, who is currently running a distant second to Trump in the Republican presidential race.
“I wouldn’t say Trump is responsible for the events of last night, but he most certainly in other events has in the past used some pretty rough language and encouraging the crowd, saying things like, “in the good old days we used to beat these people up, or I’ll pay your legal bill if you rough them up.
So I think he bears some responsibility for the general tone for the things happening,” said Marco Rubio, another GOP White House aspirant.
Governor John Kasich, another GOP presidential candidate, in a statement blamed Trump for the atmosphere.
“Tonight the seeds of division that Donald Trump has been sowing this whole campaign finally bore fruit, and it was ugly,” he said.
PTI