CNN's Jake Tapper asked Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump about the recent threats to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and his chants of “lock her up” at his rally over the weekend.
Trump proceeded to deflect by playing the conservative victim card, made excuses for her father-in-law's attacks by irresponsibly attacking coronavirus lockdowns herself, and then told Tapper he was just “having fun.” As Tapper rightfully noted, “lock her up” isn't most people's idea of “fun.”
But look, people are frustrated around America and I was just in Michigan last week. I can tell you, people there are telling me that their businesses are being run into the ground because they cannot survive this. They still feel like they are totally locked down, and at a certain point Jake, I think people are saying, look, we live in the United States of America.
We do have some freedoms. We want to get back to some normalcy. So, people are very frustrated with that governor. It has nothing to do with this attack against her, attempted attack against her. But I think you're hearing people's frustration play out there at the Trump rally.
After Tapper asked Trump about Whitmer's Deputy Digital Director Tori Saylor's tweet discussing the fact that every time Donald Trump “does does this at a rally, the violent rhetoric towards her immediately escalates on social media,” Trump responded with a lame attempt at both-siderism, as though anyone making threats against her or anyone in her family justifies what Trump has provoked at his rallies, and then told Tapper that Trump was “just having fun” when pressed again about whether he ought to stop “throwing fuel on the fire” and “tone it down.”
People want to get the country reopened. They want to get back to work. Not only are we trying to make it through a pandemic, but think about all of the cancers that have gone unaddressed. Think about the kids that aren’t in school who use school to get their one meal a day Jake.
There are issues at hand here that are bigger than just keeping everybody locked down. So I think people are frustrated and, look, the president was at a rally. It’s a fun, light atmosphere. Of course he wasn’t encouraging people to threaten this woman. That's ridiculous.
What's ridiculous is that anyone in the media gives these liars any airtime in the first place.
