Donald Trump on Sunday called for “one really violent day” to address crime in America.
Speaking at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, the former president falsely claimed that crime has gone “through the roof” and that the phenomenon was “largely because of migrant crime.” He then proposed a solution which sounded disturbingly similar to The Purge—the dystopian 2013 movie in which violence is legalized for a brief window as a means of addressing crime—in which law enforcement would be temporarily permitted to get “real rough.”
Trump—who was convicted of 34 felony counts this year—said it wasn’t just migrants contributing to the purported crimewave; he also complained about thieves targeting New York City drug stores, causing retailers to secure their products in glass cases. “See, we have to let the police do their job, and if they have to be extraordinarily rough…” he said to applause.
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In explaining his thinking, Trump claimed that thieves feel safe committing crimes because law enforcement is being unduly restrained.
“You see these guys walking out with air conditioners, with refrigerators on their back, the craziest thing, and the police aren’t allowed to do their job,” Trump said. “They’re told: ‘If you do anything, you’re gonna lose your pension, your gonna lose your family, your house, your car.’”
“The police want to do it,” he continued. “The Border Patrol wants to do it—Border Patrol, they’re incredible. They want to do it. They’re not allowed to do it because the liberal left won’t let them do it. The liberal left wants to destroy them and they want to destroy our country.”
It was at that point that the Republican nominee proposed a novel and terrifying way of cracking down on crime, which he characterized as “one real rough nasty day.”
“If you had one really violent day,” Trump said. “Like a guy like Mike Kelly, put him in charge,” he said, gesturing to the Republican Pennsylvania congressman. “Would you say, Mike, that if you were in charge, you would say, ‘Oh, please don’t touch them, don’t touch them, let them rob your store’?”
“All these stores go out of business, right? They don’t pay rent, the city doesn’t have—it’s a chain of events. It’s so bad,” Trump added. “One rough hour—and I mean real rough—the word will get out, and it will end immediately. End immediately.”
