WASHINGTON – A Donald Trump rally in Virginia was repeatedly disrupted yesterday by protesters, including some from the Black Lives Matter movement, in a stark display of the divisions the Republican front-runner’s presidential campaign has long been accused of sowing. A Time magazine photographer trying to document the exit of dozens of black protesters from the rally in southwestern Radford, Virginia, was grabbed by the neck and shoved to the ground by a US Secret Service agent.
Hecklers disrupted the rally on a day when the New York billionaire fended off criticism that he had not clearly condemned white supremacist support during an interview on CNN on Sunday.
Trump taunted the protesters, shouting “Are you from Mexico?” at one of them. Supporters in the audience confronted the hecklers in angry, face-to-face exchanges.
As black protesters were escorted from the rally, the crowd around them began to chant, “All lives matter.”
Trump waited for the scene to quiet down before saying, “Folks, you’re going to hear it once: All lives matter.” The crowd roared with applause.
Black Lives Matter is a civil rights movement that sprang from police shootings of black Americans in recent years.
The Trump rally took place yesterday, the eve of Super Tuesday, the biggest voting day in the race to pick the 2016 presidential nominees for the November election. A number of Southern states including Virginia are holding contests today, and opinion polls show Trump is likely to consolidate his status as favourite to win the Republican nomination.
It was unclear whether Trump would be damaged by support from white supremacists. He has risen in opinion polls and won three of four early nominating contests while proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, calling Mexican immigrants criminals and insulting women.
His rivals for the Republican nomination, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, urged him to ask the New York Times to release a recording of his recent interview with its editorial board, following a report he told it he was not serious about his immigration proposals. Yesterday, the protesters disrupted Trump’s remarks several times for long stretches, prompting him to shout to security guards several times, “Get them out please, get them out.”
