“Tomatoes are bad, by the way,” but “some fruits are much worse,” Donald Trump said.
New York:
Ex-President Donald Trump testified under oath that he feared protesters would pelt him with “very dangerous” fruits such as pineapples, tomatoes and bananas, saying, “You can get killed with those things.”
The comments were revealed in court documents released Tuesday, including a transcript of a statement Trump made last October as part of an pending civil lawsuit in New York.
The case was brought by several activists of Mexican descent who say they were attacked in 2015 by his guards outside Trump Tower in Manhattan.
“I wanted people to be ready because we were being made aware that they were going to harvest fruit,” Trump said under questioning by attorney Benjamin Dictor.
He added that “tomatoes are bad by the way”, but that “some fruits are much worse”.
Dictor asked Trump about comments he made at a rally in Iowa in 2016, when the then-presidential candidate told supporters they were “wiping out the shit” on anyone about to throw a tomato.
“That was to the public. It was said in a bit of a joke,” Trump replied, before adding, “But maybe, you know, some truth. It’s very dangerous stuff. You can get killed with those things.
Dictor asked Trump if it was his “expectation that if your guards see someone about to throw a tomato, they’ll have to knock the shit out?”
“Yeah, I think they have to be aggressive to prevent that. Because if that happens, you can be killed if that happens,” Trump replied.
“To stop someone from throwing pineapple, tomatoes, bananas, that sort of thing, yes, it’s dangerous stuff,” he added later.
Trump sat for about four and a half hours during the videotaped Oct. 18 impeachment after a New York judge dismissed an attempt to quash a subpoena ordering him to testify.
The activists claimed that on September 3, 2015, Trump’s bodyguards violently broke off their protest against Trump’s derogatory comments about Mexico and Mexicans at the start of his ultimately successful campaign for president.
“They bring drugs. They bring crime. They are rapists,” Trump had said.
Prosecutors allege that the guards snatched their plates and beat and choked one of the protesters.
Trump has claimed that his security “tried to de-escalate the situation” but was met with violence from the plaintiffs themselves.
The 75-year-old also faces several other legal battles, which threaten to complicate any bid for another run for the White House in 2024.
On Monday, a US judge held Trump in contempt of court and ordered him to pay $10,000 every day until he hands over financial documents to the New York State Attorney General, who is conducting a civil investigation into alleged fraud in his family business.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
