Trump Issues Ridiculous Denial Against Claims He Is Inciting Violence at His Rallies

This article originally appeared on Alternet.

Donald Trump continues to claim he is not responsible for the violence at his rallies, despite his violent rhetoric.

On Monday, at a rally in Hickory, North Carolina, the GOP frontrunner sought to drive the message home. According to Trump, every presidential candidate faces these problems, despite the fact that no one has canceled an event due to them — except Trump.

Said Trump to the crowd:

Little Marco Rubio had an event two days ago — and he has very small crowds — and a [protester] stood up — that’s what they do, they’re disrupters. It happens to everybody, but they don’t report it when it happens to someone else. With me everyone gets reported. [But] they ripped this guy down, security or somebody [and] nobody reported it. With me, it’d be on every front page of every paper in the world. This guy stood up and he said a couple of things and they just ripped him to shreds. It was incredible.

Trump quickly emphasized he wasn’t promoting this behavior. “I don’t do that,” Trump explained. “I’m a peace-loving person. We all love peace.”

Trump is actually correct on a few points. Rubio did have a protester at one of his events this past Saturday, and he was taken down quickly. Rubio’s crowds are sufficiently smaller; so much smaller that the candidate was in shock. “That has never happened before,” Rubio told the crowd.

Rubio must have had a talk with security, because the protester who showed up at the central Florida rally Sunday was escorted out much more gently. Unlike Saturday’s, this protester’s agenda was more personal. “Rubio’s trying to steal my girlfriend!” he shouted, to which Rubio responded, “I didn’t even win New Hampshire!”