Sunday at CNN’s Democratic presidential town hall, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump was “literally inciting violence with his supporters.”
Sanders said, “I hesitate to say this, because I don’t really like to disparage public officials, but Donald Trump is a pathological liar. We have never, our campaign does not believe in and never will encourage anybody to disrupt anything. We have millions of supporters, and people do what they do, and people have the right to protest. I happen not to believe that people should disrupt anybody’s meetings, but let me say something about Mr. Trump — Some of you may have read just a few hours ago that Mr. Trump said that he is prepared to pay for the legal costs of an individual who sucker punched somebody at a recent event. He is going to pay the legal fees of somebody who committed a terrible act of violence. What that means is that Donald Trump is literally inciting violence with his supporters. He is saying that if you go out to beat somebody up, that is okay, I will pay the legal fees. That is an outrage and I would hope that Mr. Trump tones it down big time and tells his supporter ss that violence is not acceptable in the American political process.”
He continued, “Well, you know, Jake, you heard this one individual who sucker punched somebody, and if he is quoted correctly, what he said, well, you know, why did you punch him up? Well, he might be a terrorist, and next time I might have to kill him. And this is roughly the e quote…And this is guy that Trump is go going to be paying legal fees for? What that is essentially saying, friends, is an incitement to violence, you go beating up somebody, the legal fees, it is okay, we’ll pay. This is unacceptable, and I think that Senator Rubio has a legitimate concern. We have to put an end to this. Trump has to get on the TV and tell his supporters that violence in the political process in America is not okay, not acceptable, end of discussion.”