Donald Trump is known to encourage violence against those he believes have wronged him, and to do so in public, as a quick and easy way to rile up the base. In February 2016, after a protester was ejected from a rally in Las Vegas, he mused, “I’d like to punch him in the face.” Shortly thereafter, referencing a man who’d thrown a tomato at him during a stump speech, the then-candidate told supporters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, O.K.. Just knock the hell—I promise you I will pay for the legal fees, I promise.” A month later, as a small group of protesters was removed from a venue in Warren, Michigan, he told the crowd, “Yeah get him out, try not to hurt him. If you do I’ll defend you in court, don’t worry about it.” He’s openly fantasized about “Second Amendment people” preventing the appointment of liberal judges. He’s told police offers to knock suspects’ heads against the side of their squad cars. He’s praised a congressman for assaulting a reporter who had the temerity to ask a question about health care. All of which is to say it’s somehow not all that surprising that at a rally in Panama City Beach, Florida, last night, the president lamented the fact that the U.S. can’t stop asylum-seekers from coming into the country by just shooting them.

“When you have 15,000 people marching up and you have hundreds and hundreds of people and you have two or three border-security people that are brave and great—and don’t forget, we don’t let them and we can’t let them use weapons . . . other countries do, we can’t, I would never do that,” he told the crowd. “But how do you stop these people? You can’t.” To which one of his supporters offered a suggestion. “Shoot them!” he yelled, eliciting much laughter, including from the president, because shooting people fleeing violence is hilarious. “Only in the panhandle can you get a way with that,” Trump responded with a huge grin on his face, probably making a mental note to ask his advisers about making stand your ground laws a federal thing. “Only in the panhandle.”

Obviously, short of a pre-rally brain transplant, Trump was never going to defend asylum-seekers, whom the U.S. is actually required by law to recognize. But it‘s nice to see that as we head into the 2020 election season, he’s happy to provide a tacit endorsement of violence against people his most rabid supporters don’t think should be allowed into the country.

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