A Trump Rally: Reality vs. the Associated Press

Donald Trump appeared at a big rally in Asheville, North Carolina today. Breitbart News reports from a pro-Trump perspective:

“Hillary Clinton owes all of you an apology and I think you’ll get that apology right around the same time that she hands over the 33,000 emails that she deleted,” the Republican nominee told a huge crowd in Asheville, North Carolina during a campaign rally on Monday night.

This video was tweeted by a Trump fan at the rally, but you can see that it is reality. The event was impressive:

At one point a small scuffle broke out in the huge crowd, precipitated by anti-Trump protesters. Breitbart gives the incident appropriate space:

A bit of a scuffle appeared to break out during Trump’s remarks.

This was followed by a few tweets about the scuffle.

The Associated Press saw the rally entirely differently. Nothing about the large, enthusiastic crowd. In the AP’s telling, the only significant thing that happened was the scuffle:

Donald Trump stood up for his supporters Monday against Hillary Clinton’s remark that half of his supporters belonged in “a basket of deplorables,” denouncing the comment as “an explicit attack on the American voter” and suggesting that it makes her unfit for the presidency.

Next comes the “but”:

But even as Trump defended his backers, one lashed out at protesters in the hall by appearing to punch and slap them.

So that is a refutation of what Trump said? The AP evidently thinks so.

Trump talked through the scuffle.

How dare he ignore the only thing the Associated Press wants to talk about!

Another Trump quote, followed by a purported refutation:

“While my opponent calls you deplorable and irredeemable,” he said in Asheville, North Carolina, “I call you hard-working American patriots who love their country and want a better future for all our people.”

But his rally was interrupted several times by demonstrators…

That speaks poorly of Hillary Clinton’s supporters, not Trump’s.

…and, at one moment, brief violence. As several protesters were being escorted out by security, a man in the crowd grabbed a male protester around the neck and then punched him. He then slapped at a woman being led out. The Trump supporter was not ejected by security.

So that’s it. The AP thinks the main thing that happened at a rally attended by thousands is that one guy punched an obnoxious left-wing demonstrator. The overwhelming majority of violence at Trump rallies has been perpetrated by Democrats, as we have documented repeatedly. Was the AP concerned about that sometimes-frightening violence? Not that I noticed.

The AP’s campaign for its candidate, Hillary Clinton, continues:

No stranger to making his own sweeping negative characterizations of large groups of people, Trump nonetheless deployed Clinton’s remark as the foundation for a new campaign theme. The message: Clinton is divisive, while Trump is the only candidate representing “all Americans.”

The AP is actually pretty funny. Its bias is so obvious, its cheerleading for the Democrats so patent, that I doubt the news service has much influence anymore.

Trump and his aides have predicted that Clinton’s statement would be more damaging than the gaffe to which it has been frequently compared, when Mitt Romney four years ago suggested that “47 percent” of voters wouldn’t back him because they were dependent on government.

But Trump has also attacked Americans who don’t intend to vote for him.

Despite the AP’s efforts, I think most people can figure out that Hillary Clinton is just about the last person we should want to be president.

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