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| Trump threatens Sanders as Ohio and Florida votes loom – campaign live | Trump threatens Sanders as Ohio and Florida votes loom – campaign live |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| 1.27pm GMT | |
| 13:27 | |
| Tapper also briefly asks Sanders about Hillary Clinton’s brief praise for the late Nancy Reagan, whom she said started a “national conversation” on HIV/Aids – and then apologized for the comment, given the former first lady’s extremely conspicuous silence during a health crisis that affected tens of thousands of Americans. | |
| I just don’t know what she was talking about. In fact that was a very tragic moment in modern American history, there were many many people who were dying of Aids, and in fact there was demand all over the country for President Reagan to start talking about this tragedy, and yet he refused to talk about it | |
| I’m glad she apologized, but the truth it was not President Reagan and Nancy Reagan who were leaders … quite the contrary … they didn’t get involved in it. | |
| 1.22pm GMT | |
| 13:22 | |
| Bernie Sanders is next on the CNN program, and the host asks the Vermont senator about Trump’s accusations of sending “disrupters” to rallies. | |
| Sanders says we should take “Mr Trump’s words with a grain of salt because, I think, as almost everybody knows, this man” can’t stop lying. | |
| “To call me a communist is a lie. To talk about our organization or our campaign disrupting his event is a lie.” | |
| He acknowledges that some of the protesters in Chicago were supporters of his, “but certainly, absolutely, our campaign had nothing to do with his meeting,” | |
| “Even his Republican colleagues make this point,” Sanders goes on, “his language, his intonations, when you see people suckerpunch, people kick people when they’re down. This is a man who keeps impyling violence and you are getting what you see.” | |
| “Int he United States of America you don’t go beating up people, people have a right to peacefully protest,” he says. | |
| Sanders takes the thought further, saying that “Trump is getting nervous” and “getting reckless” because he’s seeing the senator ahead of him in hypothetical general election polls. | |
| “We cannot have a president like Trump who insults Mexicans, who insults Muslims, who insults women,” he says. | |
| He reasserts that his campaign had nothing to do with the protests. “There were many many many organizations,” in Chicago, he says. “I do not like anybody disrupting anybody’s meetings,.” | |
| He concludes that he’ll gladly tell his supporters, as often as he has to, that there’s no place for violence or attempts to suppress free speech. | |
| 1.16pm GMT | |
| 13:16 | |
| Tapper asks about Trump’s tweet this morning that threatens to disrupt Sanders rallies. | |
| Trump: “It’s not a threat, it’s not a threat. It’s not a threat at all! … My people have said we oughtta go to his rallies, when liberals, and super liberals, I don’t even call ‘em liberals. | |
| “These people are bad people that are looking to do harm to our country. These people come into mine … They’re being arrested and all sorts of things are happening to them. … There’s a horrible thing going on in the media. We are treated so unfairly, and I’m treated so unfairly.” | |
| Even Tapper stands up to him, saying people are getting hurt – Trump doesn’t let him finish. | |
| “My fellow Republicans are running against me, they are losing big league.” | |
| Tapper tries to bring it back to the human cost of Trump’s rhetoric, Trump repeats in an irritated voice “excuse me, excuse me!” He dismisses the idea that anyone was hurt or could be hurt because of his rallies. | |
| “The danger was ended by a very good managerial decision not to have” a rally in Chicago, he says. “How many people have been injured at my rallies? Zero, zero!” | |
| Tapper: “I don’t think it’s zero…” | |
| Trump does not mention the protester suckerpunched last week, the reporter assaulted (allegedly by Trump campaign manager), or the protester bloodied outside a rally in St Louis. | |
| He says that his rallies get “thousands and thousands of people” who don’t get hurt, suggesting that the few who do get hurt don’t matter. But he doesn’t acknowledge those people. The interview ends. | |
| 1.10pm GMT | |
| 13:10 | |
| First up this Sunday morning is Donald Trump on CNN’s State of the Union. | |
| Host Jake Tapper tells Trump he’s “being faulted for a tone, encouraging violence”, and asks the Republican frontrunner whether he ever thinks about triyng to calm people down. | |
| “I think in many cases I do lower the temperature,” Trump says, “when I say things like I’d lie to punch him, frankly this is a person” who’s violent and “crazy”. | |
| He says he doesn’t even call the protesters protesters, he says. “I call ‘em disrupters. A lot of them come from Bernie Sanders, whether he wants to say it or not, if he says no, he’s lying.” | |
| “We have great rallies, we have by far the biggest rallies … and out of that we’ve had very little problem.” | |
| “What I did with Chicago, it would’ve been easier to go … because you had professional disrupters, thousands of them, from Sanders, and to a smaller extent Hillary.” | |
| “You had Sanders disrupters going over there … and I’ll tell you what, I think what I did, and I’ve gotten a lot of credit for [canceling]. … My supporters have tremendous love of this country, they’re tired of getting ripped off.” | |
| He says “you would’ve had a tremendous clash,” had he not canceled the rally in Chicago. | |
| 12.47pm GMT | 12.47pm GMT |
| 12:47 | 12:47 |
| Trump threatens to disrupt Sanders events | Trump threatens to disrupt Sanders events |
| Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the 2016 presidential election – of late a contest seeing pepper spray and police intervention, racially charged arguments and violent clashes, all at the stoking of one man: Donald Trump. | Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the 2016 presidential election – of late a contest seeing pepper spray and police intervention, racially charged arguments and violent clashes, all at the stoking of one man: Donald Trump. |
| Trump began the weekend in Chicago, which he quickly left in a state of disarray: he cancelled a rally at the sight of hundreds of protesters outside the venue and dozens inside it. Those protesters scuffled with his supporters, two police officers were injured and five people arrested, including a CBS News reporter who was charged with “resisting arrest”. | Trump began the weekend in Chicago, which he quickly left in a state of disarray: he cancelled a rally at the sight of hundreds of protesters outside the venue and dozens inside it. Those protesters scuffled with his supporters, two police officers were injured and five people arrested, including a CBS News reporter who was charged with “resisting arrest”. |
| But the billionaire sallied onward, speaking at events in Ohio and Missouri with little regard for facts of the night before. Although Chicago police quickly asserted that “they did not consult us at all”, the billionaire put out a statement that the police were “informed of everything before it happened. Likewise secret service and private security firms were consulted and totally involved”. | |
| He then blamed supporters of Bernie Sanders, organized groups, “many of them thugs”, and defended his sometimes violent fans. | He then blamed supporters of Bernie Sanders, organized groups, “many of them thugs”, and defended his sometimes violent fans. |
| “I don’t have regrets,” he said on Friday. “These were very, very bad protesters. These were bad dudes. They were rough, tough guys.” | “I don’t have regrets,” he said on Friday. “These were very, very bad protesters. These were bad dudes. They were rough, tough guys.” |
| He started up again on Sunday. No thuggishness to see here. | He started up again on Sunday. No thuggishness to see here. |
| Bernie Sanders is lying when he says his disruptors aren't told to go to my events. Be careful Bernie, or my supporters will go to yours! | Bernie Sanders is lying when he says his disruptors aren't told to go to my events. Be careful Bernie, or my supporters will go to yours! |
| The Democratic candidates denounced him: Sanders called him a “a pathological liar” who heads “a vicious movement” and Hillary Clinton said he was guilty of “political arson”. | The Democratic candidates denounced him: Sanders called him a “a pathological liar” who heads “a vicious movement” and Hillary Clinton said he was guilty of “political arson”. |
| His Republican rivals hedged on their pledges to support the party nominee, even Trump: Ted Cruz said his opponent’s campaign “affirmatively encourages violence”, Marco Rubio said “this is what happens” when a campaign feeds off resentment, and John Kasich said the frontrunner was preying on fears. | His Republican rivals hedged on their pledges to support the party nominee, even Trump: Ted Cruz said his opponent’s campaign “affirmatively encourages violence”, Marco Rubio said “this is what happens” when a campaign feeds off resentment, and John Kasich said the frontrunner was preying on fears. |
| There are only two days left before Kasich and Rubio’s reckoning: they need to win their home states of Ohio and Florida on Tuesday to have any chance at all of staying in the race. Meanwhile, many Republicans are debating the devil they know – Ted Cruz, a man so personally disliked he has spawned a Zodiac killer meme – versus the devil they don’t – the bilious Trump. | There are only two days left before Kasich and Rubio’s reckoning: they need to win their home states of Ohio and Florida on Tuesday to have any chance at all of staying in the race. Meanwhile, many Republicans are debating the devil they know – Ted Cruz, a man so personally disliked he has spawned a Zodiac killer meme – versus the devil they don’t – the bilious Trump. |
| For Democrats, Sanders’ win last week in Michigan rattled Clinton, although she retains a huge lead in delegates and superdelegates according to AP estimates. | For Democrats, Sanders’ win last week in Michigan rattled Clinton, although she retains a huge lead in delegates and superdelegates according to AP estimates. |
| All this and more is on the talk show tables this morning, where cable TV hosts will confront the candidates on policy, personality and the campaign chaos. They may even succeed in keeping it relatively civil, as these pro- and anti-Trump protesters did in St Louis. | All this and more is on the talk show tables this morning, where cable TV hosts will confront the candidates on policy, personality and the campaign chaos. They may even succeed in keeping it relatively civil, as these pro- and anti-Trump protesters did in St Louis. |
| Updated | Updated |
| at 1.00pm GMT |