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At Pennsylvania Rally, Trump Says He Wouldn’t Mind Journalists Getting Shot

“It’s not a joke,” journalist Jeff Sharlet wrote. “It’s fascism.”

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Kinston Regional Jetport on November 3, 2024, in Kinston, North Carolina.

During a rally on the final Sunday before the presidential election, Republican nominee Donald Trump told an audience gathered in the battleground state of Pennsylvania that he wouldn’t mind if a gunman shot through the group of reporters covering the event.

After discussing the protective glass surrounding him, the former president said a would-be assassin “would have to shoot through the fake news” to get to him.

“I don’t mind that so much,” Trump said, drawing laughter and applause from his supporters. “I don’t mind.”

Watch:

Journalist Jeff Sharlet wrote in response that during his time covering “the fascism beat,” he’s met “men who’ve been itching for that encouragement, who openly fantasize about beating or killing reporters.”

“It’s not a joke,” Sharlet wrote. “It’s fascism.”

Trump has long reveled in attacking members of the press, vilifying them as “the enemy of the people” and directing the ire of his supporters in their direction. Kash Patel, a Trump confidant who’s expected to get a senior national security post if the former president wins Tuesday’s election, suggested earlier this year that a second Trump administration would go after “the people in the media” with criminal or civil charges, underscoring the threat the Republican nominee poses to press freedom.

Facing backlash over Trump’s latest attack on the press, his campaign issued an absurd statement claiming the former president was “actually looking out for [reporters’] welfare” by “stating that the media was in danger.”

The Atlantic’s Helen Lewis noted Sunday that “journalists are only some of the many ‘enemies from within’ whom Trump has name-checked at his rallies and on his favored social network, Truth Social.”

Lewis continued:

He has suggested that Mark Zuckerberg should face “life in prison” if Facebook’s moderation policies penalize right-wingers. He has suggested using the National Guard or the military against “radical-left lunatics” who disrupt the election. He believes people who criticize the Supreme Court “should be put in jail.” A recent post on Truth Social stated that if he wins on Tuesday, Trump would hunt down “lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials” who had engaged in what he called “rampant Cheating and Skullduggery.” Just last week, he fantasized in public about his Republican critic Liz Cheney facing gunfire, and he previously promoted a post calling for her to face a “televised military tribunal” for treason. In all, NPR found more than 100 examples of Trump threatening to prosecute or persecute his opponents. One of his recent targets was this magazine.

Trump also said during Sunday’s rally in Pennsylvania — where he and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris are in a dead heat — that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after losing the 2020 election.

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Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.

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