Ex-US President Donald Trump revealed that he and his Secret Service feared being assaulted by tomatoes during one of the campaign rallies back in 2015.
The detail emerged as part of the deposition transcript from the lawsuit filed by a group of protesters who claim to have been assaulted by Trump's security guard at the 2015 rally. However, according to the former president, he and his Secret Service were simply taking precautions against a dangerous precedent.
The attorney representing the protestors, Benjamin Dictor, asked Trump whether he asked his audience to "knock the crap out" of those who were "getting ready to throw a tomato".
"Oh, yeah. It was very dangerous," Trump confirmed. "They were going to throw fruit. We were threatened. We had a threat. I thought Secret Service was involved in that, actually. And you get hit with fruit, it's -- no -- it's very violent stuff. We were on alert for that."
Trump proceeded to explain that there were other things, "more than a tomato". He, however, did not elaborate, only noting that a tomato alone is already dangerous enough to alert the Secret Service about it.
"It was said sort of in jest," the former president clarified. "But maybe, you know, a little truth to it. It's very dangerous stuff. You can get killed with those things. ... I wanted to have people be ready because we were put on alert that they were going to do fruit. And some fruit is a lot worse than -- tomatoes are bad by the way. But it's very dangerous ... they were going to hit -- they were going to hit very hard."
While not a single US top official is known to have been severely injured or killed by a tomato, this fruit indeed has a long history of terrorising American politicians. Richard Nixon, for his part, was hit by tomatoes, along with eggs and other vegetables, during an anti-war protest in 1970. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also had tomatoes thrown at her motorcade during her 2012 trip to Egypt but was not hurt.
Trump was questioned back in 2021, with a group of protesters suing him back at the time accusing his security guards of assaulting them at the 2015 campaign rally. He denied the allegations, but said that he was "pleased to have had the opportunity to tell my side of this ridiculous story."