- Huckabee:“The president in no way, form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence. If anything, quite the contrary.”
June 29, 2017 Press briefing in response to a question.
- Trump: “So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Just knock the hell …. I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. I promise.”
Feb. 2016 Cedar Rapids, Iowa rally.
- Trump, inciting the insurrectionists: “And we fight. We fight like hell. And, if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Jan. 6, 2021
“You’ve got two camps right now of people who should speak out and haven’t. The first camp knows Trump is a dangerous and vindictive man but doesn’t want to upend their lives by provoking his ire. The second camp is more nakedly transactional.”
– Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security in the Trump administration