Donald Trump’s campaign is defending comments the Republican presidential nominee made suggesting that he wouldn’t mind if members of the press were killed.
“I have a piece of glass over here and I don’t have a piece of glass there. And I have this piece of glass here. But all we have really over here is the fake news, right?,” Trump said at a rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania on Sunday, two days before the election.
He continued: “And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news, and I don’t mind that so much because — I don’t mind.”
“They’re my glass. See? Those people are my glass,” he added, pointing to the press.
In a statement later on Sunday, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung claimed the former president’s remark had nothing to do with the media being harmed, adding that former president was actually looking out for their welfare.
“The President’s statement about protective glass placement has nothing to do with the Media being harmed, or anything else. It was about threats against him that were spurred on by dangerous rhetoric from Democrats,” Cheung said.
He continued: “In fact, President Trump was stating that the Media was in danger, in that they were protecting him and, therefore, were in great danger themselves, and should have had a glass protective shield, also. There can be no other interpretation of what was said. He was actually looking out for their welfare, far more than his own!”
But, Campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told ABC News that Trump was, “obviously joking” and slammed the media for picking “apart every single word that Donald Trump says.”
Trump’s rhetoric has grown increasingly dark during the final days of the campaign.
At the Pennsylvania rally on Sunday Trump said that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after losing the 2020 election. At a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Wednesday, he vowed to “protect” women, “whether they like it or not”.
At a campaign event in Glendale, Arizona on Thursday he suggested that one of his main critics, Liz Cheney, should be shot at.
