At a Trump campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Friday, a seemingly aggressive individual was stopped and subdued by security and law enforcement in the middle of what appeared to be an attempt at confronting members of the media assembled to cover the event. They crossed over a fence blocking off the press area and were in the middle of trying to get onto a riser utilized by journalists.
According to the Associated Press, the incident took place “moments after Trump had criticized major media outlets for what he said was unfavorable coverage and dismissed CNN as fawning” over the news network’s handling of a high-profile interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz. The same report said that police used a Taser against the individual, for whom the news source noted that motivations were unclear.
But in a clip of the incident posted to X, which is the social media site formerly called Twitter, Trump appears to instinctively express support for the individual targeted by the take-down. “That’s beautiful, that’s beautiful,” Trump says in the background after a pause that, contextually, appeared to be him trying to assess the situation.
“He’s on our side,” Trump added, as best could be heard in the clip from CBS’s Taurean Small. “We get a little itchy, don’t we?” “Security in the press pen grabbed him first before he was taken down by law enforcement,” Small said of what had been going on.
Trump, meanwhile, then began talking about the earlier Trump rally held last month in Pennsylvania that was targeted by a shooter, who killed one man in the crowd. Trump himself was lightly injured in a security breach that led to ongoing investigations and the resignation of who then served as head of the U.S. Secret Service. The shooter himself was killed.
Trump, meanwhile, has a history of glossing over serious, real-world violence. Just take a look at his stance on the attack on the U.S. Capitol of January 6, 2021. Trump has repeatedly proposed legal assistance — particularly, pardons — for Capitol riot defendants if he makes it back into power, sometimes making no distinction between defendants accused of violence and individuals facing non-violent charges.
