WASHINGTON/BLOOMINGTON, Ill., (Reuters) – Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump refused to take responsibility yesterday for clashes at his campaign events and criticized protesters who have dogged his rallies and forced him to cancel one in Chicago last week.
When a protester interrupted his speech yesterday at an airport hangar in Bloomington, Illinois, minutes after it began, Trump derided him as a “disrupter” and told the cheering crowd: “Don’t worry about it – I don’t hear their voice.”
“Our rallies are so big and we have so many people, I never hear their voices. I only hear our people’s voices saying: ‘There they are, there they are,’” the billionaire businessman said as the audience roared approval and some 2,000 protesters waited outside.
Two later rallies yesterday in Ohio and Florida passed without disruption.
Trump is trying to cement his lead over his remaining Republican rivals – U.S. Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida and Ohio Governor John Kasich – in five states that hold presidential nominating contests on Tuesday for Republicans and Democrats: Florida, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina and Missouri.
The four Republicans and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are vying to run in the Nov. 8 election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama.
Trump used a round of Sunday morning television appearances to rebut strong criticism from Republican rivals and Democrats that he was encouraging discord with divisive language disparaging Muslims and illegal immigrants.
“I don’t accept responsibility. I do not condone violence in any shape,” Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
The 69-year-old New York real estate mogul defended his supporters and said he was considering helping pay the legal fees of a 78-year-old white man who punched a young black man at a Trump rally in North Carolina last week. The man, Trump said, “got carried away.”
“I’ve actually instructed my people to look into it,” he said.
The man, John McGraw, was charged with assault and later with communicating a threat after he was seen on video saying he enjoyed hitting “that loudmouth” and threatening next time “to kill him.”
Trump had earlier promised to help cover the legal fees of supporters involved in clashes at his rallies.
