Trump Says He’d Deport ‘Anti-American’ Protesters in Bizarre Rally Speech
Much like the college administrators who called the cops on student protesters, Donald Trump‘s solution to quash any political uprising appears to be using the force of the state.
While speaking about Israel’s war in Gaza during a campaign rally in Wildwood, New Jersey on Saturday, Trump criticized the pro-Palestine protests on American college campuses, saying, “When I’m president, we will not allow colleges to be taken over by violent radicals.”
“If you come here from another country and try to bring jihadism, or anti-Americanism, or antisemitism to our campuses we will immediately deport you, you’ll be out of that school,” Trump continued.
Trump also alleged the campus protesters are being funded by President Joe Biden’s political donors, echoing a Politico story that Rolling Stone debunked. He has previously compared the campus protesters at Columbia University to the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, although he distinguishes the former as destructive and damaging and the latter group as “unbelievable patriots.”
Trump also criticized Biden’s decision to withhold a shipment of bombs to Israel due to its planned invasion of Rafah.
“Crooked Joe’s action is one of the worst betrayals of an American ally in the history of our country,” Trump said. “I support Israel’s right to win its war on terror, is that OK?”
Tens of thousands of people were in attendance for the rally held in the coastal city on the tip of the South Jersey Shore, with the Trump campaign claiming up to 80,000 people showed up to hear the presumptive GOP presidential nominee speak.
In addition to criticizing Biden’s response to the conflict in Gaza, Trump also spent much of his speech lambasting the Biden administration’s environmental policy, including the Environmental Protection Agency’s new guidelines to increase the number of electric vehicles on the roads, calling it Biden’s “insane electric vehicle mandate.” The oil and gas industry is reportedly writing executive orders to roll back Biden’s environmental policies in a second Trump administration.
Trump also took a moment to praise the villain of the 1991 horror film The Silence of the Lambs in one of the more bizarre tangents of the evening. Trump had been discussing Biden’s “open border,” alleging that criminals and “people from insane asylums and mental institutions” were coming into the U.S., a popular topic in his rally speeches.
“”Has anybody ever seen The Silence of the Lambs? The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’s a wonderful man,” Trump said. “He oftentimes would have a friend for dinner.”
The moment is not the first time Trump has mentioned Lecter during a campaign stop, having referenced him in an apparent mix-up with the actor who portrayed the character, Anthony Hopkins, during a speech in Iowa last October. Trump wrapped up the tangent by saying, “Congratulations, the late, great Hannibal Lecter.”
The rally comes after the fourth week of Trump’s hush money trial, where the former president is charged on suspicion of 34 counts of falsifying business records stemming from payments made to former porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Daniels took the witness stand herself this week, recapping her encounter with Trump and undergoing cross-examination by his legal team.