The AJC Condemns Violence in U.S. Politics After Donald Trump Warns of Riots
Donald Trump Image by Getty Images
WASHINGTON — The American Jewish Committee said “violence has no place in American politics” after Donald Trump warned that denying him the Republican presidential nomination could spark riots.
“Violence and threat of violence have no place in American politics,” the AJC said in a statement released Thursday, which did not mention Trump by name and emphasized that the Jewish advocacy group is non-partisan and does not endorse candidates.
Trump, speaking earlier Thursday on CNN, had warned that a brokered Republican convention in Cleveland, Ohio, in July could lead to rioting.
“I think you’d have riots,” he said. “I’m representing a tremendous many, many millions of people.”
Trump has accrued by far the most delegates in the race for the Republican presidential nod, but could conceivably fall short of the majority needed to secure a nomination on the first count at the party’s convention.
Pledged delegates could change their votes on second and subsequent counts, which creates the possibility that Trump could lose the nomination even while securing a plurality of the Republican primary vote.
“There should be no threats to disrupt political rallies and no threats to disrupt a convention if a candidate is denied the nomination by his party’s convention,” the AJC statement said, also referring to the protests last week that led Trump to cancel a rally in Chicago.
A woman outside the nixed event was photographed doing a Nazi salute.
“Too many democracies have failed, to be replaced by autocratic governments, when violence became a sanctioned political tool, especially by those who feel disenfranchised and choose not to await ordinary change at the ballot box.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
