Donald Trump was worried about getting killed by fruits, and that he believes justifies assaulting an individual to stop them from launching a potentially lethal tomato.
While under oath for a lawsuit in New York that alleges members of his security detail assaulted protesters outside Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign, Trump warned about “dangerous” fruits like tomatoes, pineapples, and bananas saying “you can get killed with those things.”
According to the Daily Beast, lawyers for the protesters asked Trump about comments he made in the past condoning violence at rallies, including one in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Feb. 1, 2016, when he told supporters that if anyone threw a tomato at him, they should “knock the crap out of them,” and he’d pay the legal fees.
That’s when Trump warned of killer fruits.
Asked by the protesters attorney Benjamin Dictor if he remembers making that statement, Trump said: “Oh yeah. It was very dangerous.”
“What was very dangerous?” the lawyer asked.
“They were going to throw fruit,” Trump said. “We were threatened. We had a threat.”
Trump said the campaign was told before the rally about protesters throwing tomatoes.
“We were told. I thought Secret Service was involved in that, actually. But we were told. And you get hit with fruit, it’s – no, it’s very violent stuff. We were on alert for that,” he said.
Here the lawyers had a brief discussion about whether a tomato is a fruit or vegetable. The lawyer for the protesters said “a tomato is a fruit after all, I guess,” which prompted Trump’s attorney Jeffrey Goldman to chime in to confirm, saying it is a fruit because “it has seeds.”
“It’s worse than tomato. It’s other things also,” Trump continued. “But tomato, when they start doing that stuff, it’s very dangerous. There was an alert out that day.”
Trump conceded that his remarks to the audience may have been “said sort of in jest,” but quickly added that there was “a little truth to it” because a flying tomato “is very dangerous stuff. You can get killed with those things.”
Asked whether he was trying to “incentivize people to engage in violence,” Trump responded: “No, I wanted to have people be ready because we were put on alert that they were going to do fruit. And some fruit is a lot worse than — tomatoes are bad, by the way. But it’s very dangerous.”
“Do you have any knowledge as to whether or not anybody was found to have tomatoes in their possession on that date?” Dictor asked.
“I don’t know. But… it worked out that nothing happened,” Trump answered.
“Is it your expectation that if your security guards see someone about to throw a tomato that they should knock the crap out of them?” Dictor asked.
“Well, a tomato, a pineapple, a lot of other things they throw,” he said. “Yeah, if the security saw that, I would say you have to—and it’s not just me, it’s other people in the audience get badly hurt—yeah, I think that they have to be aggressive in stopping that from happening. Because if that happens, you can be killed if that happens.”
“And getting aggressive includes the use of physical force?” the lawyer asked.
“To stop somebody from throwing pineapples, tomatoes, bananas, stuff like that, yeah,” Trump replied. “It’s dangerous stuff.”
