Man with menacing stare says he was actually protesting Trump

PHOENIX — Security guards removed a man perceived to be staring menacingly at the press from a Donald Trump campaign rally on Saturday.

A television reporter notified a security guard that the rally attendee was holding an object in his hand and described him as a “very dangerous man” after noticing the man facing away from Trump and staring at length directly at members of the press. Minutes later, security guards removed the man from the Phoenix Convention Center.


But following the publication of this article, the man, Anton Weber, reached out to POLITICO to report that in fact he had turned his back on Trump in protest of the businessman’s claims that the election is “rigged” against him.

“I am 6-foot-4 and did not want to stare at the floor any longer so I was staring at the floor of the press platform,” Weber explained. “I fully support the press.”

The incident comes as Trump’s attacks on the press have grown more extreme in recent weeks, with the Republican nominee accusing journalists and bankers of colluding with Hillary Clinton’s campaign to destroy him as part of a vast globalist conspiracy.

Earlier this month, in response to that rhetoric, Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, warned, "Whether Intentionally or not, Donald Trump is evoking classic anti-Semitic themes that have historically been used against Jews and still reverberate today."

It was not the only press-related incident at Saturday's rally. Minutes before the man was removed, two other men began shouting at the press pen. One of them, wearing a hat with a mushroom cloud and the words “bombislam.com” as well as a shirt with former President Bill Clinton’s face and the word “rape” began shouting, “Bill Clinton’s a rapist.” His companion, wearing a “Hillary for Prison” shirt, shouted at the press, “You are rapists” and “you need to pay for Bill Clinton’s rape,” adding, “You are responsible.”

That same man, when the crowd broke into a chant of “U-S-A” stood at the metal barrier separating the press from the crowd and shouted at members of the press, “Jew-S-A.”

Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said: "The campaign strongly condemns this kind of rhetoric and behavior. It is not acceptable at our rallies or elsewhere."

Toward the end of Trump’s speech, as the travelling press filed out of the pen to wait by Trump’s motorcade backstage, the Republican nominee called reporters “terrible people” and said the media won’t tell the public that the national murder rate is at a 45-year high, a false claim that Trump regularly repeats at his rallies.

