View on violence appears to contradict Trump’s past comments

“The president in no way, form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence.” — Sarah Huckabee Sanders on June 29 in a White House press briefing

We’re not considering Trump’s tweet of a GIF showing him body-slamming a figure labeled CNN at a professional wrestling match, which Trump sent several days after Huckabee Sand- ers’ comment. However, the record shows several cases in wh i ch Tr u mp has said things that we believe an ordinary listener would understand as encouraging violence.

For just one example, in March 2016 at a rally in Kansas City, talking about someone who had rushed the stage, Trump said, “I don’t know if I would have done well, but I would have been out there fighting, folks. I don’t know if I’d have done well, b ut I would’ve been — boom, boom, boom. I’ll beat the crap out of you.”

Whether Trump’s words would qualify legally as incitement to violence is questionable. Lee Rowland, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union wrote concerning a lawsuit stemming from a Trump rally in Louisville, “Over time, the Supreme Court ... adopted a very speech-protective test to determine when incitement has taken place ... It’s a high bar for a reason, and Trump’s conduct at the rally didn’t meet it.”

Our ruling

We found several examples in which Trump offered public musings that showed a tolerance for, and sometimes even a favorable disposition toward, physical violence. Trump’s words may not meet a legal threshold for incitement to violence, but Huckabee Sanders’ portrayal distorts the record of Trump’s past statements. We rate her statement False.

MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV, KREMLIN POOL PHOTO VIA AP President Donald Trump was in the spotlight this past week with PolitiFact. He ended the week in the international spotlight by attending the G20 summit in Germany, where he took part in a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.