Amnesty International on Sunday condemned President Donald Trump for “condoning violence and intimidation” after the president applauded the caravan of his truck-driving supporters that surrounded a Biden campaign bus on a Texas highway Friday, prompting allegations of reckless endangerment and an FBI probe of the incident.
“In my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong,” Trump tweeted hours after absurdly claiming that his supporters were “protecting” the Biden campaign’s bus. “Instead, the FBI & Justice should be investigating the terrorists, anarchists, and agitators of ANTIFA, who run around burning down our Democrat run cities and hurting our people!”
Following the swarming of the Biden campaign bus by dozens of Trump supporters attempting to bring the bus to a halt, Texas Democrats canceled three scheduled events for the former vice president due to safety concerns.
In a series of tweets late Friday, Dr. Eric Cervini, a historian and Biden campaign volunteer, said the pickup trucks with Trump flags were “sitting along I-35, waiting to ambush the Biden/Harris campaign bus as it traveled from San Antonio to Austin.”
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), who represents constituents in San Antonio and Austin, told The Guardian that “this aggressive, abusive conduct by his supporters results from Trump continuing to incite acts of intimidation and violence.”
“We have to stand up to these bullies,” Doggett added, “just as we seek to protect the right of every last Texan to vote out the Bully-in-Chief.”
The FBI is investigating the harassment of a Biden-Harris campaign bus by Trump supporters, a law enforcement source tells me.
Trump claimed today his supporters were merely “protecting” the bus — an absurd claim that simply does not square with the eyewitness video evidence. pic.twitter.com/tTLlCMk0Fa
— Josh Campbell (@joshscampbell) November 1, 2020
The president’s supporters also wreaked havoc in New Jersey and New York on Sunday, bringing traffic to a halt on two major highways and potentially offering a preview of Trump-endorsed mass chaos to come on Election Day and the days that follow.
“I took the Throggs Neck. Heard there was a pileup of chumps on the Whitestone [Bridge],” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) quipped in response to a Trump supporter’s video of the blockade in New York.
I took the Throggs Neck. Heard there was a pileup of chumps on the Whitestone https://t.co/Vbaug6OLjy
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 1, 2020
New York state Sen. David Carlucci, a Democrat, called the Trump backers’ behavior “aggressive, dangerous, and reckless” and accused them of “causing danger to themselves and others.”
“The New York State Police should be working to identify these individuals and charging them,” said Carlucci. “We all have the right to show support for a presidential candidate, but we do not have the right to endanger others and break the law.”
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