A lifelong Republican held up the sign “Republicans against Trump” at Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Reno — then things escalated.
Trump was rushed off the campaign stage mid-speech by Secret Service Saturday, after an unnamed rally goer yelled “gun” regarding a protester trying to hold up a sign against Trump. Secret Service said they “immediately apprehended the subject” — later identified as Austyn Crites — who had no weapon.
“All of a sudden, because they couldn’t grab the sign, or whatever happened, bam, I get tackled by all these people,” Crites told KRNV. “And somebody yells something about a gun, and so that’s when things really got out of hand.” He was glad Secret Service jumped in, however — otherwise he felt the crowd would have beaten him to death, he said.
Trump resumed the speech, saying “nobody said it was gonna be easy for us, but we will never be stopped,” and thanking law enforcement. Later in a statement Trump said, “Nothing will stop us – we will make America great again!”
The crowd was ripe with furor, however, according to reports on the ground, and many rally goers falsely reported the event as an “assassination attempt” — a baseless claim that continues to permeate through Trump’s surrogates.
Immediately after the incident, Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. and the campaign’s social media aide Dan Scavino took to Twitter to push the idea that the protester was attempting to kill Trump, retweeting misleading headlines and reports.
Click here to read more about Trump’s falsely reported assassination attempt.
