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The crowd of thousands of Trump sympathizers demonstrated in the crowd on Wednesday night in Panama City Beach. President Trump reiterated that border patrol officers can not use weapons to deter migrants. "How do you stop these people?" Asked he.
"Shoot them!" Shouted someone in the crowd, according to reporters and attendees.
The audience applauded. The supporters sitting behind Trump and wearing white baseball caps wearing the letters "USA" laughed and applauded.
"It's only in the Panhandle that you can get away with this statement," Trump replied, smiling and shaking his head. "Only in the Panhandle."
Although Trump did not explicitly support the suggestion of shooting migrants, his response to the joke raised fears that he would tacitly encourage extrajudicial executions and brutality against asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants. The president has long been accused of endorsing acts of violence by his incendiary rhetoric and allusions to the risk of violence at his rallies, a charge his administration denies.
Reaching a Washington Post commentary on Trump's reaction at Florida rally, Matt Wolking, deputy communications director for the Trump campaign, pointed out answer he had given many critics on Twitter. The president, he noted in his tweet, said the border patrol would not use guns to prevent migrants from entering the country.
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The inflammatory remark from the crowd came as Trump, standing in front of about 7,000 people gathered in an open-air amphitheater in the hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast town, went on the rampage against what was going on. He described it as an "invasion" of migrants trying to enter the United States. Often, he said, only "two or three" border services officers will be faced with the arrival of "hundreds and hundreds of people".
"And do not forget, we do not leave them and we can not let them use weapons," Trump said of the border officers. "We can not. Other countries do it. We can not. I would never do that. But how do you stop these people? "
The fans sitting directly behind Trump were frowning in serious and disturbed eyebrows, which were quickly replaced by wide smiles after the screaming suggestion that the solution involved guns. Bursts of laughter were heard in the room as audience members whistled and applauded.
For critics, the fact that Trump did not categorically condemn the idea of shooting at migrants has resulted in a "tacit endorsement" of sentiment. Many pointed out that this rhetoric was particularly disturbing as a group of armed militias, the United Constitutional Patriots, searched the borders for undocumented migrants and arrested them against their will.
[Trump again nods toward violence by his supporters — and maybe something bigger]
Last month, after the arrest of group leader Larry Mitchell Hopkins, accused of possessing firearms and ammunition, the FBI said that 69-year-old militia members were preparing for the assassination of former President Barack Obama. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and eminent Democratic donor George Soros.
A member of the militia also questioned why the group was not killing migrants, according to a police report obtained in advance by the left-wing newspaper The Young Turks.
"Why do not we apprehend them, line them up and shoot them?", Asked another member Armando Delgado Gonzalez during a patrol in April. "We have to go back to the Hitler era and put them all in a gas chamber."
Gonzalez denied making these comments during an interview with BuzzFeed News, although a third member of the group confirmed that the exchange took place and told BuzzFeed that the militia had filed a police report because his remarks were a "red flag".
On Wednesday, Trump's choice of mocking the demand for violence rather than condemning it seemed alarming and perhaps monumental.
"We are at a point where the president and thousands of supporters are laughing at the idea of shooting at immigrants the same week that it was discovered that militias were really considering it," said Liberal activist Jordan Uhl. wrote on Twitter. "The next logical step is that it really happens."
The insistence of the Trump campaign on the fact that the president has made it clear in his own words that border officials could not use violence against migrants as struck by their relevance. Anil Dash, CEO of Tech and activist wrote that Trump "specifically incited his followers to commit these acts of violence themselves, so as to give him a plausible denial rather than do it directly by border agents".
This is not the first time Trump has cited the threat of violence as a potential deterrent to border crossing. As the Daily Beast pointed out, he told Fox News host Sean Hannity in March that the use of guns would be "very effective" but It was not an option.
"Other countries stay there with machine guns ready to fire," Trump said. said at the time, adding, "We can not do that. I would not want to do that, okay? It's a very effective way to do it but I would not want to do it. We can not do it. "
During a trip to Texas last month, Trump complained that "everyone would go insane" if soldiers deployed at the border became "a little tough" with the migrants. Similarly, border patrol agents would be arrested if they "showed themselves to be harsh" with those in custody, he lamented.
And Wednesday's rally is just Trump's latest example of mocking – or even forgiving – brutality. As Aaron Blake of The Post documented, he has long made subtle and not so subtle headaches, and encouraged his supporters to brutalize protesters at his rallies several times during his campaign of 2016.
At a rally in October, he congratulated the representative Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) For assaulting a journalist during his congressional candidacy, calling the congressman "my guy." More recently, in March, he suggested to his supporters potentially being tempted to stand up in response to all efforts to remove him from office.
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