“You people were vicious, violent, screaming, ‘Where’s the wall?’ ‘We want the wall!’ Screaming, ‘Prison!’ ‘Prison!’ ‘Lock her up!’ I mean, you were going crazy," Trump said. "You were nasty and mean and vicious. And you wanted to win, right?”

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Trump added: "It’s much different. Now you’re laid back, you’re cool, you’re mellow, right? You’re basking in the glory of victory.”

Trump is trying to have it both ways here, arguing that his supporters' at-times-over-the-top passion was a uniquely Trump phenomenon but also taking issue with anyone who casts it as a bad thing when it went too far.

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During the campaign, he seemed to revel in the chaos that sometimes characterized his rallies and nodded toward violence at several junctures. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd even said that Trump had told her he liked it.

"I told him that it was wrong that there was violence being incited at his rallies and that reporters were getting roughed up," Dowd said on CNN back in September. "And he paused — you're right, he did listen — but then he disagreed and said he thought the violence added a frisson of excitement."

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And one of the signature chants of Trump's rallies over the years, as Trump noted Friday night, was "lock her up" — a rallying cry involving the jailing of a political opponent.

You can say what you want about the appropriateness of that kind of political dialogue, and plenty has been said. But it's undeniable that it was without any recent precedent in American history. There was something about Trump that drew these kinds of scenes and chants.

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Trump is both suggesting that was a good thing — arguing that his supporters were uniquely riled up by his candidacy to the points that they could be perceived as being "violent" and "vicious" — while also suggesting that any criticisms of that kind of behavior are unjustified and unfairly tarnishing his supporters. But either they were unique or they weren't.