A day before the final Republican presidential debate of 2015, Donald Trump held a rally in Las Vegas on Monday night, and the crowd did not handle the occasional interruption from Black Lives Matter protesters very politely. As one protester, identified by BuzzFeed News as Ender Austin III, was dragged out by hotel and casino security, Trump supporters yelled "Shoot him!" and "Kick his ass!" and, memorably, "Light the motherf—er on fire!" BuzzFeed's McKay Coppins caught that last (NSFW) invective on camera:
Other comments shouted out by Trump supporters as protesters were forcibly escorted from the room included the Nazi salute "Sieg heil!" and "He's a Muslim!" NBC News reports. After the fifth or sixth scuffle between security and protesters, Coppins, attending his first Trump rally, expressed surprise at the circus:
Along with doing a play-by-play of the scuffles, Trump reportedly taunted the press for rushing to capture each flare-up on camera. At one point, he joked that he had staged a protester-security fight just to get reporters to document the size of the crowd. Trump has expanded his lead among Republicans since proposing that all Muslims be banned from traveling to the U.S.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Political cartoons for November 9Cartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include a ripoff, and the land of opportunity
-
A ‘golden age’ of nuclear powerThe Explainer The government is promising to ‘fire up nuclear power’. Why, and how?
-
Massacre in Darfur: the world looked the other wayTalking Point Atrocities in El Fasher follow decades of repression of Sudan’s black African population
-
Has Zohran Mamdani shown the Democrats how to win again?Today’s Big Question New York City mayoral election touted as victory for left-wing populists but moderate centrist wins elsewhere present more complex path for Democratic Party
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
NY attorney general asks public for ICE raid footageSpeed Read Rep. Dan Goldman claims ICE wrongly detained four US citizens in the Canal Street raid and held them for a whole day without charges
-
Trump’s huge ballroom to replace razed East WingSpeed Read The White House’s east wing is being torn down amid ballroom construction
-
Trump expands boat strikes to Pacific, killing 5 moreSpeed Read The US military destroyed two more alleged drug smuggling boats in international waters
