Donald Trump continues to defend his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, after another video of him allegedly assaulting a rally attendee.
March 20, 2016

It is no surprise that the violence at Trump's rallies continue to ramp us as the weeks go on. In the past two weeks, though, we have seen not only attendees assault protesters, but Trumps Campaign Manager, Corey Lewandowski, has jumped into the violence game as well. Two weeks ago, Lewandowski allegedly grabbed a former Breitbart reporter, Michelle Fields' arm, leaving numerous bruises. Just yesterday, Lewandowski was videotaped clearly grabbing the shirt collar of a non violent attendee at a rally in Arizona and forcibly shoving and throwing him from behind.

Lewandowski and Trump's team have denied that it is him, but it is fairly clear to anyone with even the worst uncorrected vision that it is him on the numerous video clips circulating online. No one else is wearing a grey suit and the hand that grabs the young man's shirt is encased in a grey sleeve.

When confronted with this fairly damning piece of video evidence, Trump did a tap dance around it. Here is an excerpt from Trump's interview with George Stephanopolous from This Week on ABC:

"STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, you also -- we've also seen that video there of your campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who does appear in that video to grab the collar of the protesters also as your private security. Why is your campaign manager out in the crowd engaging protesters? This is the second incident in about a month.

TRUMP: You know what, because the security at the arena, the police were a little bit lax and he had signs, they had signs up in that area that were horrendous, that I cannot say what they said on the sign. But the ultimate word. And it was all over the camera. And frankly the television cameras can't take it and they can't do anything about it.

And I will give him credit, spirit -- now he didn't touch. He wasn't...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, the video there showed that he touched him. Your private security pulled him...

TRUMP: That was somebody else pulling him. I mean, I get -- I give him credit for having spirit. He wanted them to take down those horrible profanity-laced signs.

Look, these are disrupters. They go into a room with 20,000 people or they go into a room with 6,000 or 7,000 people and they stand up and they start shouting things. And they -- I mean, at some point, somebody should say -- I will say this, Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix arrested three people. As soon as he arrested those three people, everybody else immediate left.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, but it -- and it is the job of the police to arrest protesters who are being disruptive if they are, indeed...

TRUMP: Well, that happened. That happened...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you appear to be more...

TRUMP: It happened in the Phoenix area, it didn't happen in Tuscon.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You appear to be much more upset by the protesters than by the violent response to those protesters.

TRUMP: I am very -- I wouldn't use the word upset. I think it's very unfair that these really, in many cases professional, in many cases sick, protesters can put cars on a road blocking thousands of great Americans from coming to a speech and nobody says anything about that. But they'll say something about whatever. I will tell you...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Kicking and punching a protester.

TRUMP: -- it's a very unfair -- it's a very -- let me just tell you, it's a very unfair double standard. Why don't you mention the fact that people were delayed for an hour to get into an arena and the only road going there that they were delayed for an hour because people were blocking the road? And why don't you say, in Tucson, where the people were blocking the main entrance into the arena?

It's very unfair."

What is unfair is that Donald Trump not only allows violence to continue to ramp up at his rallies, but he offers to pay the legal bills of those who commit assault, actively incites continued violence and now condones and encourages his own staff to assault protesters.

How long until someone gets shot?

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