Benedict Smith
30 September 2024 8:41pm
Donald Trump has suggested that allowing the police to be “extraordinarily rough” for an hour would end crime.
The Republican presidential candidate claimed that “one real, nasty day” would put an “immediate” stop to criminality, in comments that drew comparisons to the horror film The Purge.
The Trump campaign insisted that he was not making a serious policy suggestion and was speaking “in jest”.
Trump told a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania on Sunday: “We have to let the police do their job. And if they have to be, extraordinarily rough.
“And you know, the funny thing with all of that stuff, look at the department stores… you see these guys walking out with air conditioners, with refrigerators on their back. The craziest thing.
“And the police aren’t allowed to do their job. They’re told if you do anything, you’re gonna lose your pension, you’re gonna lose your family, your house, your car.
Trump continued: “You know, if you had one day, like one real rough, nasty day… One rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out and it will end immediately. End immediately. You know, it’ll end immediately.”
Several commentators claimed that Trump was endorsing The Purge, a dystopian film in which murder and violence are made legal for 12 hours every year to release public aggression and tackle crime rates and unemployment.
A campaign official said afterwards that the former president was “clearly just floating it in jest”.
Nevertheless, crime has become a key battleground in the election with Trump frequently invoking his “law and order credentials”, and his rival Kamala Harris talking up her time as a prosecutor.
According to polling from the Pew Research Centre, 51 per cent of voters give Trump the edge on law enforcement and criminal justice issues, compared with 47 per cent for Ms Harris.
This is despite the fact that the Republican was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records in his New York “hush money” trial earlier this year.
“President Trump has always been the law and order president and he continues to reiterate the importance of enforcing existing laws,” Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director, told Politico.
“Otherwise it’s all-out anarchy, which is what Kamala Harris has created in some of these communities across America, especially during her time as [California] attorney-general when she emboldened criminals.”
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