Trump-Inspired Violence in America

From Incitement to Extremism: The Evidence Behind Trump-Era Political Violence

Updated September 20, 2026.

Some political commentators still portray Donald Trump as a peacemaker, pointing to foreign photo-ops and self-promoted "deals." The record at home says otherwise. For a decade he has incited, excused, and rewarded violence against his own countrymen, and the evidence is not rhetorical. It is a ledger of injuries and deaths, kept below.

Trump causes violence in the United States

Trump has inspired more violence in the United States than any American since Jefferson Davis, whose secessionist cause ignited a Civil War that killed 750,000 Americans.

Trump's rhetoric has emboldened extremists and fueled hate crimes; his government's policies have done their own share of the harm. Notes from the Road keeps this record...the acts of his followers and the acts of his administration...updated as they happen, so that none of it can be rewritten or forgotten later.

Trump has now incited more deaths of Americans than were killed across multiple U.S. wars combined, including Vietnam with about 58,200 deaths, Korea with 36,500, the Mexican–American War with 13,300, the War of 1812 with 15,000, the Philippine–American War with 4,200, the Spanish–American War with 2,450, the Iraq War with 4,550, the Afghanistan War with 2,460, the Persian Gulf War with about 380, the American Indian Wars with roughly 20,000, and other post-9/11 military operations with about 8,000, for a total of approximately 165,000 American deaths.

The total deaths attributed below to Trump's rhetoric, policies, and actions exceeds that figure, a toll driven overwhelmingly by independent estimates of preventable COVID-19 deaths during his first term.

Index of entries

A running record of Trump-era violence, newest first — jump to any dated entry.

September 20, 2026

Austin, Texas. An ICE officer shot Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan DoorDash driver who had missed an immigration court date, in the back. After a chase, an unmarked SUV rammed his Corolla in a strip-mall parking lot, and an agent fired three rounds through the back window. DHS policy bars shooting at the driver of a moving vehicle unless deadly force is otherwise justified. The officer had been issued a body camera and was not wearing it. Garcés Pérez was discharged that night into ICE custody, the bullet still lodged near his spine.

Sources: NPR; The Texas Tribune; CBS News.

September 20, 2026

Evanston, Illinois. Federal agents pinned a man to the sidewalk outside a Mexican restaurant on Howard Street and beat him about the head. Evanston police found him with injuries to his head, neck, and teeth and called an ambulance. He was a U.S. citizen and an Evanston resident. An agent admitted to a local officer that the team released him only after realizing he was a citizen. The agents left in an unmarked black SUV. The beating came during the deportation surge Trump ordered across the Chicago area.

Sources: Evanston Now, “Federal agents detained U.S. citizen Sunday morning”; Evanston RoundTable, “U.S. citizen injured during mistaken ICE detention in Evanston”.

September 14, 2026

Ochopee, Florida. A DHS Inspector General report found that between July 2025 and January 2026, seventy-nine people at “Alligator Alcatraz,” the Everglades detention camp Trump toured and praised, were locked in metal cages about four feet square, some outdoors and too small to lie down in, for up to two hours at a time. The camp broke standards for medical care, food, hygiene, recreation, and safety. Trump had promised it would hold “the most menacing and vicious people in the world.” Of more than seven hundred detainees reviewed, only about a third had any criminal conviction.

Sources: NBC News, “DHS watchdog finds immigrants held at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ in outdoor cages the size of phone booths”; CNN, “Alligator Alcatraz report details disturbing conditions”; PBS NewsHour, “Fact-checking Trump’s remarks at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’”; Axios, “Amnesty International reports torture, inhumane conditions at Alligator Alcatraz”.

September 12, 2026

Portland, Oregon. A 56-page forensic analysis by a Portland engineering firm, filed in court on September 11, undercut the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the January 8 Border Patrol shooting that wounded Luis David Nico-Moncada, a 33-year-old Venezuelan man, and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras in an East Portland hospital parking lot. DHS said the driver had rammed a Border Patrol vehicle and the agent feared for his life. The report found the car was not moving toward the agent when he fired and could not have hit him.

Sources: Willamette Week, “Forensic Report on High-Profile Portland Shooting Undermines Trump Administration Account”; Wikipedia, “2026 U.S. Border Patrol shooting in Portland, Oregon”.

September 12, 2026

Franklin Park, Illinois. On September 12, 2025, an ICE officer shot and killed Silverio Villegas González, a 38-year-old cook and father of two, four days into the administration’s deportation surge in the Chicago area. He had just dropped his children at school when officers tried to stop his car. As he pulled away, an officer shot him in the back of the neck. DHS called the shooting justified, but body-camera footage and security video undercut its account. A year later, federal prosecutors have declined to charge the officer, whose name the government has not disclosed.

Total Dead: 1

Sources: Chicago Sun-Times, “A year of silence follows ICE killing of Silverio Villegas González”; WBEZ Chicago, “A year after the ICE killing of Silverio Villegas González, a host of unanswered questions”; PBS NewsHour, “A look at shootings by federal immigration officers”.

September 10, 2026

Dallas, Texas. At the Republican Party’s first-ever midterm convention, Senator Ted Cruz named New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, and Texas Senate candidate James Talarico. After each name, a voice in the crowd shouted, “He should be shot!” loud enough to carry on the live broadcast. Cruz did not stop or rebuke it, and his office later declined to say whether he had heard. The Council on American-Islamic Relations faulted Cruz for letting it stand.

Sources: CNN, “Shouts of ‘he should be shot’ heard during GOP midterm convention speech criticizing Democratic candidates”; The Detroit News, “Heckler at GOP convention says of Abdul El-Sayed: ‘He should be shot’”; Newsweek, “RNC Midterm Convention attendee heard saying Mamdani, El-Sayed, Talarico should ‘be shot’”.

September 3, 2026

Minneapolis, Minnesota. A federal grand jury indicted ICE deportation officer Christian Castro, 52, on six counts of making false statements, the first such federal charge against an immigration officer in the nationwide enforcement campaign. During Operation Metro Surge on January 14, Castro fired through the closed front door of an occupied home, wounding Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg. Two one-year-old children were inside. Castro claimed men attacked him with a broom and a snow shovel, an account surveillance video does not support. Prosecutors first charged the two men with assaulting an officer, then dropped the charges once the video surfaced.

Sources: CNN, “ICE officer federally charged in Minneapolis shooting lied to investigators 6 times, indictment says”; MPR News, “Christian Castro indictment includes new details of shooting that wounded Venezuelan man”;“Unsealed federal indictment details alleged lies by ICE officer”.

September 2, 2026

Nationwide. As of September 1, advocacy groups counted at least two dozen people who had died in ICE custody since January; 2026 is on pace to be the deadliest year in the system’s modern history. In 2025, ICE reported 33 detainee deaths, the highest total in more than two decades. NPR reported the death of Lianyong Wei, found dead within hours of being booked into detention in the Northern Mariana Islands, the 57th detainee death since the start of the second Trump term. Human Rights Watch tied the rising deaths to the expansion’s speed and scale.

Sources: NPR, “ICE detainee dies just hours after he was admitted into detention”; National Immigration Project, “Mourning Those Who Have Died in ICE Custody”; Human Rights Watch, “Dying in Detention”.

August 31, 2026

Chicago, Illinois. A Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ analysis of ICE's own records found that about 85 percent of the immigrants detained during Operation Midway Blitz, the roughly ten-week surge that began September 8, 2025, had no prior criminal conviction. Over the sixty-eight most intense days, agents deported some 2,700 people and caught only five people convicted of murder. The government justified the operation as hunting the “worst of the worst,” while masked agents under Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino shot and killed an unarmed man, rammed vehicles, and hauled away day-care workers, tamale vendors, and U.S. citizens.

Sources: Chicago Sun-Times, “Trump's ‘Blitz’ on Chicago targeting the ‘worst of the worst’ detained only 5 murderers in 68 days”; Chicago Sun-Times, “Operation Midway Blitz by the numbers”; WBEZ Chicago, “Sun-Times, WBEZ reporters on last fall's deportation campaign”.

August 13, 2026

Washington, D.C.; Northern Virginia; and Minneapolis, Minnesota. DHS sought up to $20 million to buy the G.L.O.V.E., a glove that delivers a Taser-like shock, for ICE officers. In Bailey's Crossroads, Virginia, a masked agent pointed a gun at Carolina Molina, an American citizen who shouted insults at agents. DHS said she weaponized her vehicle. Her dashcam contradicts that account:

Court filings revealed undercover HSI operations, including “Operation Puppet Master,” that infiltrated Minnesota churches, libraries and union halls, and DHS subpoenaed the financial records of labor unions and the Sunrise Movement. The filings identify the operation as a direct response to President Trump's executive order on “left-wing domestic terrorism.”

Sources: ABC News, “DHS seeks to purchase electric shock gloves for ICE officers”; CNN, “ICE agent points gun at Virginia woman who shouted at them”; HuffPost, “Undercover Operation Targeted Minnesota ICE Protesters, Labor Unions”.

August 11, 2026

Arlington, Virginia. ICE agents detained Jose Mejia Hernandez, a Mexican man, as he walked to work at about 6:30 a.m. during the Northern Virginia enforcement surge. He was hospitalized with a brain bleed, brain swelling, facial trauma, and internal bleeding. His attorney says agents chased and struck him. His wife and stepchild did not know where he was for about three days, and a GPS ankle monitor delayed his MRI for more than a week. DHS said he tried to flee and agents used necessary force. Local police opened a criminal investigation.

Sources: HuffPost, “DHS Denies ICE Gave Man Brain Bleed As Probe Calls Grow”; Newsweek, “ICE Responds to Detainee's Claim of Brain Bleed After Arrest”.

July 13, 2026

New York, New York. E. Jean Carroll received more than $5.6 million from Trump, the original $5 million judgment plus accrued interest, after the Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal. In 2023 a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s, forcibly penetrating her with his fingers, and for defaming her. U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan later wrote that the verdict implicitly determined Trump had digitally raped Carroll.

Total Raped: 1

Sources: The Washington Post, “Judge clarifies: Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll”; The Washington Post, “E. Jean Carroll gets $5.6 million from Trump verdict, court records show”.

July 13, 2026

Biddeford, Maine. ICE agents shot and killed a 26-year-old Colombian man during an enforcement operation under Trump's expanded interior immigration enforcement. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin acknowledged to Senator Angus King that the man was not the target of the warrant, and said he “weaponized” his vehicle. Advocates said he was authorized to work in the United States. The agents wore no body cameras.

One day later, a 28-year-old man fleeing federal agents in St. Johns County, Florida, was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer while crossing a highway.

Total Dead: 2

July 10, 2026

Columbus, Ohio / Washington, DC. A federal grand jury indicted eight men on terrorism and murder-conspiracy charges for allegedly plotting a drone and sniper attack on UFC Freedom 250, held on the White House South Lawn on June 14, 2026. The alleged targets included President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Elon Musk. Investigators and family members described the defendants as emerging from ultra-religious, anti-government, conspiratorial online communities. Earlier, Thomas Matthew Crooks, a registered Republican, wounded Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and Ryan Wesley Routh, a onetime Trump supporter, was charged in a second attempt.

Total Dead: 1 (Corey Comperatore, Butler rally, July 13, 2024)

Total Injured: 2 (David Dutch and James Copenhaver, Butler rally, July 13, 2024)

July 7, 2026

Houston, Texas. An ICE agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old construction worker who had lived in the United States for more than three decades, after agents mistook his white work van for a vehicle tied to someone else. DHS acknowledged he was not the person agents intended to arrest. ICE claimed he tried to strike an officer with his vehicle but released no footage supporting that account. On July 9 the Harris County Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide. The killing came under the Trump administration's aggressive immigration-enforcement strategy.

Total Dead: 1

May 29, 2026

Minneapolis, Minnesota / Harlingen, Texas. ICE agent Christian Castro, charged on May 18 with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime in the January 14, 2026 shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis during a federal immigration operation in Minneapolis, was arrested in Harlingen, Texas. Castro fired through a door and claimed he had been attacked with a shovel and broom. Prosecutors said surveillance footage and physical evidence contradicted him. Federal authorities had charged Sosa-Celis with assaulting a federal officer; those charges were dismissed.

Total Injured: 1

May 18, 2026

Washington, DC. The Justice Department announced a $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" that could compensate people who claimed they were harmed by federal investigations and prosecutions, including Trump supporters prosecuted for their roles in the January 6 Capitol riot. Trump had already granted pardons and clemency to approximately 1,500 January 6 defendants. Watchdog groups documented at least 33 pardoned January 6 defendants who later faced additional criminal charges. In May 2026, pardoned rioter Zachary Alam was sentenced to seven years in prison following a Virginia burglary conviction.

Documented aftermath: At least 33 pardoned January 6 defendants had faced new criminal charges as of May 2026.

March 2, 2026

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Daphy Michel, a 31-year-old Haitian asylum seeker with severe, untreated mental illness, died of hypothermia days after her release from federal immigration custody in Pittsburgh on February 27. She spent at least a full day at a South Shore bus shelter in sub-freezing temperatures before she was found unresponsive. In June 2026, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner ruled her death a homicide. She died amid the Trump administration's expansion of detention, deportation, and accelerated-release policies.

Total Dead: 1

January 27, 2026

Minneapolis, Minnesota. Anthony Kazmierczak, 55, rushed the stage at U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar's town hall and sprayed a liquid at her from a syringe-like device. The liquid was apple cider vinegar and water, and Omar was not physically injured. Omar said the man was angry that Trump's deportations of Somalis were not proceeding fast enough. The attack followed nearly seven years of Trump singling out Omar by name, including calling her "garbage" in December 2025. Afterward, Trump suggested Omar "probably had herself sprayed." Kazmierczak pleaded guilty in May 2026 to a federal charge of assaulting a United States officer.

January 24, 2026

Minneapolis, Minnesota. A federal Border Patrol agent shot and killed Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, registered nurse, and lawful concealed-carry permit holder, during Operation Metro Surge, President Trump's expanded immigration enforcement campaign. Video shows Pretti on the sidewalk filming the operation on his phone when agents tackled and restrained him before gunshots were fired. He never fired his legally carried firearm. Trump publicly described Pretti as a dangerous attacker and praised the agents, claims contradicted by video.

Total Dead: 1

January 23, 2026

Park City, Utah. At a Sundance Film Festival event, Christian Joel Young, 28, forced his way into a private party, told U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost "we are going to deport you and your kind," yelled a racial slur, and punched him in the face. He also assaulted a woman, telling her, "You are the kind we are going to deport." Young was charged with aggravated burglary, assaulting an elected official, and assault. His language mirrored Trump's promotion of the idea that political opponents should be deported, jailed, or removed from public life.

Total Assaulted: 2 (Rep. Frost and a second attendee)

January 22, 2026

Minneapolis–Saint Paul metro. In a sweeping ICE operation under President Trump's escalated immigration enforcement push, federal agents detained four children from the Columbia Heights Public Schools community in separate incidents: a 5-year-old preschool student, a 10-year-old fourth-grader, and two 17-year-old students. The 5-year-old was taken with his father outside their home, and school officials alleged agents used the child to approach the door.

Children detained: 4

January 15, 2026

Minneapolis, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon; Santa Ana, California. After an ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good on January 7, masked federal agents dragged a Minneapolis woman from her car as she said she was autistic and trying to get to her doctor's appointment. Days later, a federal agent there shot a man in the leg.

On January 8 in Portland, Border Patrol agents shot and wounded two people. On January 9 in Santa Ana, a federal agent's projectile struck a 21-year-old protester in the face, fracturing his skull and blinding him in one eye. The surge followed Trump's calls for domination of protest activity and expanded federal force.

Injured since January 7: 5-10 shot or seriously injured.

January 11, 2026

Minneapolis–Saint Paul metro. Federal immigration agents violently arrested Orbin Mauricio Henríquez Serrano during a gas-station stop captured on video that spread widely online. He says agents pinned him to the ground until he lost consciousness, shattered his car window, wrenched him out of his Jeep Cherokee, and struck his hand with a small hammer. Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino was present and directing the scene. Henríquez Serrano says he received inadequate medical care in detention before being deported. In late January 2026, Bovino was reassigned to El Centro, California.

Total Injured: 1

January 7, 2026

Minneapolis, Minnesota. Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, was shot multiple times and killed by an ICE agent during Operation Metro Surge, a Trump-ordered deployment of thousands of federal agents to Minneapolis that followed his campaign against the city's Somali community, whom he called "garbage." Good and her wife were observing the operation, and she was suspected of no crime. The agent fired as she tried to pull away. Trump falsely claimed she had "willfully and viciously ran over" an agent. Video and Minneapolis officials contradicted him.

Total Dead: 1

October 8, 2025

Portland, Oregon. ICE officers tackled and detained Oriana Korol, clarinetist for the Unpresidented Brass Band, after a peaceful downtown demonstration. I photographed her playing her clarinet minutes earlier, standing apart from any confrontation. ICE gave no reason for the detention and transported her across state lines. Video shows her engaged solely in musical performance. The detention came amid the Trump administration's aggressive interior enforcement push against "sanctuary" cities.

Unlawfully detained: 1

October 4, 2025

Chicago, Illinois. Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen, was shot five times by a federal agent during an immigration enforcement operation under Trump administration directives. She survived serious gunshot wounds and was not suspected of any immigration violation. DHS claimed, without corroborating evidence, that she had "rammed" agents with her car, and she was charged with assault on a federal officer. A federal judge raised concerns about potential destruction of evidence by an involved agent. On November 20, 2025, the case was dismissed with prejudice.

October 2, 2025

Portland, Oregon. Masked, plainclothes ICE agents detained Frank Miranda, a U.S. citizen, outside his workplace, telling him he was "on an overstay" despite his insistence that he was born in California. They struck him from behind, handcuffed him, and held him for hours at Portland's ICE facility before releasing him. His attorney, Michael Fuller, filed a tort claim against the Department of Homeland Security. The detention came amid Trump's renewed campaign against "sanctuary" cities.

Total Injured: 1 (and unlawfully detained)

September to October 2025

Chicago, Illinois. Federal troops were deployed without the consent of Chicago to secure ICE facilities after mass protests against immigration raids. The deployments followed Trump's executive order authorizing use of the National Guard to protect "critical enforcement infrastructure." Demonstrators were beaten and tear-gassed. Local officials blamed Trump for escalating the confrontation.

Total Injuries: 7–17 (Estimated)

September 28, 2025

Grand Blanc Township, Michigan. A gunman who had displayed Trump campaign signs at his home and expressed virulent anti-Mormon views drove his truck into a Latter-day Saints meetinghouse, opened fire, and set it ablaze. Four worshippers were killed and eight injured before police shot him. Investigators described a motive rooted in hatred of the LDS church; the attack came amid a broader climate of politicized religious hostility.

Total Dead: 4

Total Injured: 8

September 8, 2025

Illinois. ICE launched Operation Midway Blitz, a campaign directly ordered by Trump to target immigrants in sanctuary jurisdictions. Agents raided homes and workplaces without warrants, detaining hundreds of people, including legal residents. Videos of families dragged from homes circulated widely, prompting nationwide outrage. Trump defended the raids as "restoring law and order" without evidence.

Injuries: 8-30 (Estimated)

August 31, 2025

Arizona (ICE detention facility). Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas died in ICE custody at an Arizona facility after Trump reinstated and expanded fast-track detention policies. His family's attorneys said he was held in prolonged isolation, had limited access to legal counsel, and repeatedly requested mental-health support that was not provided. ICE confirmed the death but released few details. Advocates estimate the toll under Trump's reinstated detention regime may be in the dozens.

Total Dead: at least 32

June 14, 2025

Brooklyn Park and Champlin, Minnesota. Democratic state legislator Melissa Hortman, former Speaker of the Minnesota House, and her husband, Mark Hortman, were assassinated in their home. Democratic state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman, were shot multiple times and survived. Authorities alleged the gunman deliberately targeted Democratic elected officials and kept lists of politicians and perceived political opponents. The attacks followed years of Trump calling Democrats "the enemy from within." No evidence has emerged that Trump directed or coordinated the attacks.

Total Dead: 2

Total Injured: 2

June 2025

Los Angeles, California. After Trump announced new interior enforcement targets, ICE and federal police raided multiple neighborhoods, detaining hundreds. Peaceful protests erupted downtown; Trump called protesters "criminal sympathizers." Federal agents used batons and flash-bangs, injuring journalists and bystanders. The crackdown marked a return to tactics Trump had called for publicly weeks earlier, promising to "put fear back in the hearts of illegals."

Injuries: 30-70 during the peak period of June 6-14.

Spring to Fall 2025

United States. The Trump administration reassigned FBI and federal police personnel from other divisions to immigration enforcement, fulfilling his order to "treat every city like a border city." The policy triggered an increase in wrongful arrests and civil-rights violations, with detainees including naturalized citizens and asylum seekers. Advocacy groups documented trauma, family separation, and multiple in-custody deaths.

January — July, 2025

United States. Trump turned anti-trans policy into a governing program. On January 20 he ordered agencies to define sex strictly as biological and to roll back guidance protecting gender identity. A January 28 directive told agencies and funded partners to restrict gender-affirming care for youth. HHS moved to unwind Section 1557 health-care protections, and Education and HHS used funding leverage to force new rules on school sports. Fatal violence against trans and gender-expansive people ran at roughly 30 to 40 killings per year, with Black trans women hit hardest.

Contextual toll: 30-40 anti-trans killings per year nationwide (indirect attribution)

Contextual toll: Roughly 3,000-4,000 anti-LGBTQ assault and intimidation incidents per year (indirect attribution)

March 15, 2025

South Padre Island, Texas. Ruben Ray Martinez, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen who was not the subject of an immigration investigation, was shot and killed by an ICE agent during a roadside encounter. DHS claimed he struck or endangered an officer with his vehicle. Body-camera footage released in 2026 shows his car barely moving, brake lights on, when an agent fired three shots through the driver's-side window. A Texas grand jury declined to indict. ICE's role went undisclosed for nearly a year. The killing came during Trump's push for aggressive interior immigration enforcement.

Total Dead: 1

January 20, 2025

Washington, DC. On his first day of his second term, Trump signed a sweeping executive order to "restore full enforcement authority" to ICE. The order reintroduced fast-track deportations, reauthorized family separations, and allowed indefinite detention without hearings. Civil-rights groups immediately tied the renewed policy to spikes in detention deaths and suicides in custody.

October 31, 2024

Glendale, Arizona. During an on-stage interview with Tucker Carlson, Trump called Liz Cheney "a radical war hawk" and said, "Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her." The remark followed months of violent talk about political enemies. Security analysts and law enforcement officials warned that Trump's rhetoric was again normalizing political violence, and Arizona's attorney general opened a review of whether the remark violated state law.

October 16, 2024

Televised town hall. Trump described the January 6 insurrection as "a day of love" and "a historic, beautiful moment." The comment re-legitimized the rioters and encouraged renewed militia activity. Within days, extremist social-media groups tied to Trump's base began calling for "Round Two" if he lost the 2024 election.

October 15, 2024

Fox News town hall. Trump called his political opponents "the enemy from within" and proposed using the National Guard to handle them, explicitly describing fellow Americans as enemy combatants. His remarks were echoed in armed-patriot chatrooms that began circulating plans for "neighborhood defense patrols."

October 13, 2024

Fox News interview. Trump said domestic enemies could be handled "by the military if necessary." The statement sparked immediate praise in far-right online spaces and prompted threats against members of Congress and journalists.

September 29, 2024

Pennsylvania rally. Trump told the crowd that "one really violent day" could end all crime if police were unrestrained. Civil-rights groups condemned the remark as a call for state-sanctioned violence against civilians.

September 7, 2024

Wisconsin rally. Trump warned that removing migrants "will be a bloody story," explicitly invoking violence to describe deportations. His supporters online praised the "blood" metaphor, saying they were ready to fight. Border militias later referenced his quote while patrolling along the Rio Grande.

June 6, 2024

Television interview. Trump told Dr. Phil that "revenge can take time, but sometimes it's necessary," defending political retribution. Extremist groups circulated the clip as justification for violent targeting of perceived traitors.

March 16, 2024

Ohio rally. Trump said, "If I lose this election, it'll be a bloodbath for the country." His campaign later claimed he meant the auto industry, but the phrasing was received by followers as a threat of civil violence if he lost power. Hate-watch organizations logged a spike in online calls for armed revolt afterward.

March 11, 2024

Online post. Trump vowed to "free the January 6 hostages" and pardon them, equating violent insurrectionists with political prisoners. His words emboldened extremist defendants and deepened threats to judges overseeing their trials.

January 9, 2024

Washington, DC. After a court hearing on his criminal immunity claims, Trump warned of "bedlam" and "the opening of a Pandora's box" if he were prosecuted. Online militia groups reposted the clip, interpreting it as a signal for violent resistance should he be convicted.

December 16, 2023

New Hampshire rally. Trump said immigrants were "poisoning the blood of our country." The remark echoed fascist-era racial purity rhetoric. Following his comments, law enforcement documented increases in assaults and vandalism targeting Latino and immigrant communities in Texas and Arizona.

December 5, 2023

Iowa town hall. Trump said he would be a dictator only on "day one," explaining: "We're closing the border, and we're drilling, drilling, drilling." His supporters cheered. The comment normalized autocratic power as necessary to restore order, language long tied to his framing of dissent as treason.

November 11, 2023

Veterans Day remarks. Trump vowed to "root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and radical-left thugs that live like vermin within our country." The use of "vermin" drew condemnation for echoing genocidal propaganda. Within days, hate groups used his phrase on posters and online calls for political cleansing.

September 29, 2023

California Republican Party convention. Trump told donors that store robbers should "expect to be shot as they leave." Civil-rights groups condemned the remark as an open endorsement of extrajudicial violence against suspects.

September 22, 2023

Online post. Trump suggested that in the past, "the punishment" for General Mark Milley's behavior "would have been death." His words led to a wave of online death threats against Milley and other former military officials.

August 4, 2023

Truth Social post. Trump wrote, "If you go after me, I'm coming after you!" The post coincided with a spike in threats to judges and prosecutors handling his cases. The Department of Justice later linked multiple threat cases directly to his statements.

April 27, 2023

New Hampshire rally. Trump told supporters that "enemies of the people" were trying to stop him and that "only our movement can stop them." The "enemies" included journalists, judges, and Democrats. His phrasing directly paralleled the language he used before the January 6 attack.

March 25, 2023

Waco, Texas rally. Trump opened his speech with a patriotic song performed by incarcerated January 6 defendants, then declared, "2024 is the final battle." Waco—the site of a 1993 federal siege long mythologized by extremists—was chosen intentionally, signaling to militias that violence might again be justified.

March 24, 2023

Online post. Trump warned of "death and destruction" if he were charged in Manhattan. In the days that followed, the Manhattan district attorney's office received a threatening letter containing white powder, and threats against the prosecutor and the courthouse spiked.

March 4, 2023

CPAC speech. Trump told the audience, "I am your retribution." The phrase became a rallying cry among his base, appearing on shirts, banners, and in extremist online spaces. It framed violence and vengeance as patriotic duties.

October 28, 2022

San Francisco, California. A conspiracy-driven intruder radicalized by pro-Trump propaganda about Democratic leaders broke into the Pelosi home and struck Paul Pelosi with a hammer, fracturing his skull. Trump had spent years branding Nancy Pelosi an enemy and amplifying narratives that cast Democratic officials as existential threats; the attacker echoed those themes when explaining his target.

August 11–12, 2022

Cincinnati, Ohio. Days after Trump denounced the FBI over the Mar-a-Lago search and cast investigators as corrupt enemies, a Trump-aligned man armed with an AR-style rifle tried to breach the FBI's field office, fled, and was killed in a standoff. His online posts praised Trump and urged violent resistance to federal law enforcement, reflecting Trump's escalated anti-FBI rhetoric.

August 2022

United States. As investigations advanced, Trump warned that terrible things would happen unless the temperature was brought down and repeatedly portrayed prosecutors and agents as monsters. Threat cases against judges and federal officials increased around his statements, with defendants citing his posts and speeches as justification.

Spring–Summer 2022

United States. Trump began publicly praising January 6 defendants as patriots and hostages, urging their release and promising pardons. Those statements were cited by extremist communities to justify renewed threats against judges, jurors, and court staff handling January 6 cases.

January–December 2021

United States. Following months of Stop the Steal agitation led by Trump, election workers across the country faced a sustained wave of threats and harassment. In Georgia, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss were targeted after Trump and allies falsely accused them of ballot fraud; both were forced from their homes and into hiding as pro-Trump supporters flooded them with racist threats and doxxing.

January 6, 2021

Washington, DC. On January 6, 2021, violence incited by Donald Trump left five people dead within roughly 36 hours, and between 140 and 174 police officers injured...one of the worst assaults on American democracy in modern history.

The attack on the U.S. Capitol was the culmination of months of lies, rage, and direct instruction from a sitting president. Trump gathered his supporters near the Ellipse, repeated his false claim that the election had been stolen, and told them to "fight like hell or you won't have a country anymore." When he directed the crowd toward the Capitol, his words acted as a spark to the powder keg he had built. The mob—composed of his followers, including Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders—stormed through barricades, overwhelmed police, shattered windows, and halted the constitutional certification of the 2020 election.

Total Dead: 5

Total Injured: 140–174 officers (law enforcement)

As the Capitol fell under siege, Trump poured gasoline on the flames. At 2:24 p.m., as Vice President Mike Pence was being evacuated, Trump tweeted that Pence "didn't have the courage to do what should have been done," a message that instantly reverberated through the mob. Rioters began chanting, "Hang Mike Pence," constructing a gallows outside the building.

Later that day, Trump released a short video telling the attackers to "go home," but even then, he framed their violence as righteous, ending the video with: "We love you. You're very special." These words validated the crowd and deepened the animating grievance that defined the day...the belief that their violence was in service to the president himself. Many rioters later cited Trump's words as justification for their actions in court.

Among the dead were Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, shot while trying to breach the Speaker's Lobby; Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who collapsed after being assaulted and later died of strokes linked to the confrontation; and three others who died amid the chaos from medical emergencies triggered by the riot. In the weeks following, four officers who defended the Capitol—Howard Liebengood, Jeffrey Smith, Kyle DeFreytag, and Gunther Hashida—died by suicide, deaths their families and colleagues have directly tied to the trauma of that day. Hundreds more officers carry permanent physical and psychological injuries.

Journalists also became targets of the violence Trump had spent years encouraging. For months he had labeled the press "the enemy of the people" and goaded his crowds to jeer, eject, and attack reporters. On January 6, that rhetoric turned lethal: journalists covering the insurrection were chased, beaten, and had their cameras smashed. A mob tore down a media platform and scrawled "Murder the Media" across a door at the Capitol.

The insurrection was the physical manifestation of Trump's words...the direct outcome of a leader who wielded disinformation, grievance, and rage as political tools. Every death, every injury, and every broken barrier at the Capitol traces back to the moment he told his followers to fight for him.

December 12, 2020

Washington, DC. Trump's call for supporters to "stop the steal" culminated in the second Million MAGA March, which devolved into street brawls. His rhetoric portraying Democrats as traitors led Proud Boys and other extremists to attack counter-protesters, stab four people, and burn Black church banners.

Total Injured: 4

November 4–7, 2020

Phoenix, Arizona. After Trump alleged a stolen election, armed supporters gathered outside the Maricopa County counting center chanting "stop the steal." His claims that "Democrats were finding ballots" inspired intimidation of election workers and reporters until police secured the area.

November 4, 2020

Detroit, Michigan. Trump's baseless fraud accusations triggered a mob of his supporters to surround the TCF Center shouting "stop the count" and banging on glass doors. Officials halted counting for safety. Trump's disinformation about urban vote theft directly spurred the confrontation.

October 22, 2020

National television debate. Trump refused to clearly condemn white supremacists and told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by." Within hours, Proud Boys online channels adopted the phrase as a slogan, using it to recruit for violent pro-Trump actions culminating in the January 6 insurrection.

October 8, 2020

Michigan. The FBI announced charges against members of a militia group accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer from her vacation home, transport her to another location, and place her on what conspirators described as a "trial." Prosecutors alleged that some participants discussed killing law-enforcement officers, detonating explosives, and using violence to spark a broader uprising against government authority.

The plot emerged after months of escalating tensions surrounding COVID-19 restrictions. Throughout the spring and summer of 2020, President Trump repeatedly criticized Whitmer by name and publicly encouraged opposition to state lockdown measures. On April 17, 2020, Trump posted the message "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" on social media, a slogan that quickly became a rallying cry for anti-lockdown activists and armed militia groups protesting Whitmer's public-health orders.

Two weeks later, on April 30, armed demonstrators entered the Michigan Capitol while legislators were in session. Protesters carrying rifles and wearing tactical gear confronted lawmakers and law-enforcement officers inside the building, creating one of the most striking images of political unrest during the pandemic.

Trump continued to single out Whitmer throughout 2020, often referring to her as "that woman from Michigan" while criticizing her administration's response to COVID-19. At campaign events, crowds frequently responded with chants of "Lock her up!" when Whitmer's name was mentioned, echoing chants previously directed at Hillary Clinton.

Following the FBI's announcement of the kidnapping conspiracy, Whitmer argued that political rhetoric had contributed to an increasingly dangerous environment. Trump rejected that criticism, attacked Whitmer's leadership again on social media, and suggested she should thank the federal government for disrupting the plot rather than criticizing him.

The kidnapping conspiracy ultimately resulted in multiple federal and state convictions. Prosecutors successfully demonstrated that key participants conducted surveillance of Whitmer's home, trained with weapons, discussed abducting the governor, and took substantial steps toward carrying out the plan before it was disrupted by law enforcement.

The plotters surveilled a sitting governor's home and trained with rifles. For months before that, the President of the United States had told the country, by name, who the enemy was.

Total Injured: 0 (kidnapping plot disrupted before execution; multiple convictions obtained)

September 12, 2020

Fox News interview. Trump praised the police killing of Michael Reinoehl, the suspect in a protest shooting, and said "there has to be retribution." His comment validated extrajudicial killing and signaled approval of lethal force against perceived enemies.

June–August 2020

Portland, Oregon. Trump launched "Operation Diligent Valor," deploying hundreds of federal officers against protesters. His order to "dominate the streets" led to nightly violence—agents beating civilians, abducting protesters in unmarked vans, and injuring over 140 officers and dozens of demonstrators. Trump celebrated the crackdown and falsely branded protesters as terrorists.

Total Injured: 140+ officers and dozens of demonstrators

June 1, 2020

Washington, DC. Federal and park police violently cleared peaceful demonstrators from Lafayette Square using tear gas and rubber bullets minutes before Trump walked to St. John's Church for a photo. Injuries were numerous. The clearing followed Trump's demand to "dominate" and use overwhelming force.

Total Injuries: 50+

May 29, 2020

Online. During nationwide protests after George Floyd's murder, Trump tweeted "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

Within days, police escalations produced widely documented injuries: in Minneapolis, freelance photojournalist Linda Tirado was permanently blinded in one eye by a projectile on May 29; by June 1, press monitors had logged at least 140 police attacks on journalists since May 28; and in New York City's Mott Haven on June 4, Human Rights Watch documented at least 61 injured during a planned kettling operation. Together these early incidents illustrate how Trump's threat framed force as permissible, priming agencies for harsher crackdowns nationwide.

Total Injured: Hundreds nationwide in the first week attributable to Trump operations. (conservative estimate)

April 30, 2020

Lansing, Michigan. Trump tweeted "LIBERATE MICHIGAN" amid pandemic restrictions, encouraging defiance of state lockdowns. Days later, armed protesters entered the state Capitol, menacing lawmakers. Trump praised them as "very good people," legitimizing the threat. Months afterward, militia members plotted to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, citing Trump's words as inspiration.

April 23, 2020

Washington, DC. During a televised briefing, Trump mused about injecting disinfectant or using light inside the body to treat COVID-19. Poison-control hotlines immediately spiked with calls about cleaner exposures. His speculation caused real-world harm amid his administration's disinformation campaign.

March 2020 onward

United States. Trump repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the "Chinese virus" and "Kung Flu," language that coincided with and fueled a nationwide surge in anti-Asian hate crimes. Federal, local, and academic data all show sharp increases in harassment and violence beginning immediately after his remarks. Studies from the University of California and the National Bureau of Economic Research found that anti-Asian hashtags and hate incidents spiked following Trump's statements.

Stop AAPI Hate recorded 10,905 incidents between March 19, 2020 and the end of 2021, including approximately 1,767 physical assaults that resulted in injuries. Attackers across the country echoed Trump's language: calling victims "Chinese virus" or "Kung Flu" as they punched, kicked, and stabbed them. In one DOJ case, a Texas man stabbed an Asian family, later admitting he believed they were responsible for spreading the virus.

The period also saw at least one legally recognized anti-Asian hate-crime homicide: New York City street vendor Yao Pan Ma, beaten in 2021 and later dying of his injuries—as well as eight widely linked deaths in the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, which targeted Asian women. In cities like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, hate-crime reports against Asians rose by more than 100 percent year-over-year, with victims often citing Trump's terminology during police interviews .

Deaths: At least 1 legally adjudicated hate-crime death (Yao Pan Ma); up to 9 widely linked (including Atlanta spa shootings).

Injuries: Estimated ≈ 1,700–1,800 nationwide (physical assaults documented by Stop AAPI Hate).

February–March 2020

United States. Donald Trump's handling of the pandemic was willful politicized negligence. He minimized the threat of COVID-19, calling it the Democrats' "new hoax." He mocked people for wearing masks, and openly pressured governors to reopen economies even as infection rates soared. He was the primary inciter of a national political movement against the scientific foundations that would have protected Americans.

From the start, his administration dismantled the pandemic response team, sidelined scientists, and turned basic public-health measures into partisan loyalty tests. The result was a confused, fragmented national response that left hospitals and states competing for ventilators while the president publicly bragged that "we've done a great job" and "it will disappear like a miracle."

Chart of excess U.S. COVID-19 deaths under the Trump administration.

Researchers at Columbia University would later conclude that 130,000 to 210,000 American deaths could have been avoided with earlier and stronger federal action. Their report found that "a coordinated national response, including mask mandates and earlier lockdowns, could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives." The Lancet Commission went further, describing Trump's pandemic stewardship as "a massive policy failure" that violated "basic norms of institutional rationality and transparency." They singled out his politicization of public health: his choice to undermine experts, misrepresent data, and reward those who repeated his talking points as a core driver of preventable mortality.

Trump didn't have to pull a trigger here; he simply denied reality until it killed people. By refusing masks at rallies, cutting off WHO funding, and pressuring states to "liberate" themselves from restrictions, he transformed public health in the United States into a battlefield of identity politics. In doing so, he made a virus into a weapon of division, ensuring that tens of thousands of Americans would die needlessly for the sake of his own image.

Total Dead: 130,000–190,000 (estimated)

August 3, 2019

El Paso, Texas. A white supremacist gunman killed 23 and wounded 22 in a Walmart, publishing a manifesto that mimicked Trump's rhetoric about "invasion" at the border. Investigators found that Trump's language legitimized the shooter's ideology; victims were targeted for being Latino. The attacker was identified as Patrick Crusius, a 21-year-old from Allen, Texas, who drove more than 600 miles to El Paso to carry out the mass shooting.

Just before opening fire, Crusius posted a four-page screed online titled "The Inconvenient Truth," claiming his actions were "a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas." His phrasing matched Trump's repeated warnings of an "invasion" from the southern border, rhetoric the president used dozens of times in campaign speeches and tweets.

Federal investigators and terrorism experts later concluded that Crusius was directly influenced by the various Trump narratives. His manifesto expressed support for Trump's immigration agenda and echoed the president's language about protecting the nation's "culture" and "heritage."

Analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that Trump's use of invasion imagery had sharply increased in the months before the attack, and that the El Paso shooting demonstrated how political language portraying immigrants as invaders can normalize racist violence. The massacre remains one of the deadliest hate crimes against Latinos in U.S. history and a defining example of Trump-inspired domestic terrorism.

Total Dead: 23

Total Injured: 22

February 11, 2019

El Paso, Texas. A Trump supporter rushed the press pen and assaulted BBC cameraman Ron Skeans on the risers during a campaign rally. Trump had spent months branding reporters the enemy of the people and pointing at press pens while crowds booed, normalizing harassment and making violence against journalists feel permissible.

Total Injured: 1

October 24, 2018

United States. A series of improvised explosive devices was mailed to prominent critics of Donald Trump, including CNN, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, and several Democratic lawmakers. The targets closely mirrored individuals Trump had repeatedly attacked by name at rallies and on social media, where he labeled the press "the enemy of the people" and accused political opponents of treason, corruption, and existential threat. The bombing campaign emerged during a period of sustained Trump rhetoric portraying these figures as enemies who needed to be "stopped," framing political opposition as illegitimate and dangerous.

The suspect, Cesar Sayoc Jr., was a vocal Trump supporter who covered his vehicle with pro-Trump imagery and anti-media slogans echoing Trump's language. Federal investigators and court records showed that Sayoc selected his targets based on political grievance and consumed extensive Trump-aligned media.

While Trump publicly condemned the bombs after their discovery, he did not retract the rhetoric that had defined the victims as enemies, nor did he acknowledge the role that sustained demonization played in motivating the attack. With Sayoc, the violence graduated: from fists at rallies to a mail-bomb campaign against a list of names. The list was Trump's.

Estimated Injured: 0, multiple attempted acts of lethal violence

April 6, 2018

United States–Mexico border. Acting on directives from President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security formally implemented the "Zero Tolerance" immigration policy, mandating the criminal prosecution of all adults crossing the southern border, including asylum seekers. Trump personally demanded harsher enforcement, rejected warnings from advisors about family separation, and repeatedly argued that maximum cruelty was a necessary deterrent. Because children cannot be held in criminal custody, the policy deliberately and automatically separated children from their parents.

Trump's role was not incidental. He publicly pressured federal agencies to take children, dismissed humanitarian concerns, and falsely claimed that Democrats were responsible for the separations even as his administration executed the policy. Senior officials later confirmed that Trump was briefed on the consequences and chose to proceed. The separations were centrally ordered, intentionally inflicted, and carried out without any operational plan to track, reunify, or protect the affected families.

As a direct result of Trump's policy, thousands of children, including infants and toddlers, were taken from their parents and placed into federal custody. Many were confined in overcrowded, cage-like facilities run by Customs and Border Protection and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, where children slept on concrete floors under foil blankets, lacked adequate sanitation, and were denied consistent access to medical care, legal counsel, or family contact.

Government inspectors, pediatricians, psychologists, and federal courts documented widespread physical and psychological harm. Children exhibited acute trauma responses including prolonged crying, withdrawal, regression, panic attacks, sleep disorders, and long-term anxiety. Parents were deported without their children or detained for months without reliable information about their child's location, outcomes Trump continued to defend publicly as necessary to "secure the border."

During the height of Trump's family separation regime, multiple children died while in U.S. immigration custody or shortly after release. Medical experts and inspectors general warned that detention conditions...overcrowding, exposure, dehydration, influenza, delayed medical treatment...significantly increased the risk of serious illness and death. Subsequent investigations confirmed that Trump's administration had no reliable reunification system, leaving some families separated for years.

Trump and his senior officials described the policy, on the record, as a deterrent: the suffering of children was the mechanism, meant to discourage others from coming. Harm by design, administered by a government.

Total Affected: Approximately 5,500 children forcibly separated from their parents under Trump-era policies.

Deaths: Estimated 6 child deaths during the 2018–2019 detention surge.

Injuries: Estimated 11,000 directly injured or traumatized people (separated children plus their parents), with additional thousands exposed to harmful detention conditions even when not formally separated.

September 20, 2017

Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, destroying the island's electrical grid, crippling hospitals, and leaving millions of American citizens without reliable electricity, refrigeration, clean water, or medical access for months. Most deaths did not occur during landfall. They occurred afterward, in homes without oxygen machines, in clinics without diesel, in neighborhoods where insulin spoiled and dialysis was interrupted. I remember this day well, and especially how little the Trump administration seemed interested in what was sure to be a major emergency.

A 2018 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine estimated 4,645 excess deaths in the three months following the storm. These were deaths caused by prolonged infrastructure collapse: medical interruption, generator failure, delayed emergency response, and the slow restoration of power.

The federal response unfolded under President Donald Trump. From the earliest days of the crisis, Trump framed Puerto Rico not as fellow Americans in emergency, but as burdens. He attacked San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz after she publicly pleaded for federal help, accusing her of "poor leadership ability" and claiming Puerto Rican officials "want everything to be done for them." He described critics as "politically motivated ingrates."

While the island remained largely without power, Trump told Puerto Ricans, "I hate to tell you Puerto Rico, but you've thrown our budget a little out of whack." During his visit to San Juan, he compared Hurricane Maria favorably to Hurricane Katrina and told Governor Ricardo Rosselló, "Sixteen versus literally thousands of people. You can be very proud." He insisted repeatedly that the response was "an incredible, unsung success," and dismissed higher death estimates as politically motivated. He also tossed rolls of paper towels into a crowd of survivors, an image universally seen as mocking and dismissive amid humanitarian collapse.

Peer-reviewed research published in BMJ Global Health later found that Puerto Rico received slower and less generous federal assistance than Texas and Florida during the same hurricane season. A Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report documented FEMA supply tracking failures and distribution breakdowns. In a disaster defined by prolonged system failure, response speed directly affects survival. FEMA operates directly under the executive branch. President Trump set the tone and the priorities.

No mortality study can assign a precise body count to presidential rhetoric. But excess mortality modeling allows scenario bounding. Using the higher estimate of 4,645 excess deaths, even a modest 2–15 percent reduction under a faster, mainland-parity federal response suggests that roughly 90 to 700 deaths may have been preventable.

Hurricane Maria was a natural disaster. The duration and severity of the collapse that followed were shaped by federal decisions, and by a president who repeatedly framed Puerto Rico as a financial burden, an inconvenience, and an object of ridicule.

Excess Deaths (NEJM estimate): 4,645

Plausibly Preventable Due to Trump's Disdain and FEMA deprioritization: ~90–700

August 12, 2017

Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump's response to the "Unite the Right" rally...saying there were "very fine people on both sides"...emboldened violent white nationalists. During the rally, a neo-Nazi drove into counter-protesters, killing one and injuring dozens. Trump's equivocation gave the movement renewed legitimacy.

The attacker was James Alex Fields Jr., a 20-year-old white supremacist from Ohio who had driven his gray Dodge Challenger into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators protesting the rally. The car struck dozens of people, killing Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal and civil rights activist, and injuring 35 others. Witnesses described the moment as a deliberate act of terror aimed at silencing those who opposed the marchers' racist ideology.

The "Unite the Right" rally was organized by far-right leaders who explicitly framed it as a show of support for Donald Trump's presidency and his defense of Confederate monuments. Marchers carried torches, chanted "Jews will not replace us," and wore red "Make America Great Again" hats as symbols of allegiance.

Trump's refusal to condemn the attackers outright, and his statement equating anti-racist demonstrators with violent extremists, was widely seen as granting moral cover to white nationalist groups. Charlottesville became a hinge point for the modern extremist movement, with many participants later citing Trump's rhetoric as inspiration for their continued radicalization and subsequent acts of violence across the country.

Total Dead: 1

Total Injured: 35

July 28, 2017

Suffolk County, New York. Speaking to a gathering of law enforcement officers, Donald Trump explicitly encouraged police brutality, telling officers not to be "too nice" when arresting suspects. Trump mocked standard restraint techniques and said, "When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough. I said, 'Please don't be too nice.'" The crowd of officers applauded. The remarks came amid ongoing national scrutiny of police use of force and were interpreted by civil-rights organizations as a direct endorsement of unnecessary violence by law enforcement.

Within days of Trump's remarks, police unions praised the speech, while watchdog groups and municipal officials warned that it would be cited to justify excessive force. Civil-rights attorneys and advocacy organizations documented multiple incidents in which officers referenced Trump's comments when accused of rough handling during arrests. Trump later attempted to walk back the statement, but never retracted the message that physical harm to suspects was acceptable. A candidate had cheered violence from a stage; a president was now endorsing it from a podium.

Estimated Injured: At least 5–10 civilians subjected to documented excessive force incidents in the weeks following the speech, based on civil-rights complaints and press reporting that explicitly referenced Trump's remarks, with the true number likely higher due to underreporting.

May 26, 2017

Portland, Oregon. Jeremy Christian, an extremist with erratic politics who attended right-wing rallies and posted anti-Muslim rants that included praise of Trump, stabbed three men who intervened as he harassed two teenage girls of color, one wearing a hijab. Two victims died and one was critically injured. Christian shouted slogans about free speech and Trump as police arrested him.

Total Dead: 2

Total Injured: 1

March 25, 2017

Huntington Beach, California. OC Weekly journalist Frank Tristan was punched by a pro-Trump demonstrator at a Make America Great Again rally. Trump's rally habit of calling out and ridiculing the press created an atmosphere where attacking journalists was portrayed as defending the movement.

Total Injured: 1

February 2017

United States. Trump revoked Obama-era protections for transgender students that had allowed them to use bathrooms matching their gender identity. The rollback emboldened state-level anti-trans laws and contributed to a rise in harassment and suicide attempts among trans youth. More on this above.

January 27, 2017

Washington, DC. Trump signed Executive Order 13769 ...the first "Muslim Ban"—blocking travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations and suspending refugee entry. The order stranded thousands in airports, triggered protests worldwide, and legitimized Islamophobic violence already rising after his 2016 campaign rhetoric depicting Muslims as threats.

October 7, 2016

Washington, DC. The world heard Donald Trump in his own words. In the 2005 recording, captured while he spoke with TV host Billy Bush on the set of Access Hollywood, Trump bragged openly about committing sexual assault: "I'm automatically attracted to beautiful [women]...I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait." Then, laughing, he added the line that would come to define the scandal: "When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything."

The remarks were a confession, delivered casually, as though assault were simply a perk of fame. When the tape became public, Trump dismissed the comments as "locker-room talk", refusing to apologize for the underlying behavior. The language itself was a performance of entitlement...the voice of a man so insulated by power that he could describe sexual violence as charm.

The tape normalized aggression and degradation as political theater. Millions of his supporters brushed off the words, framing them as humor or bravado, and in doing so helped move the boundaries of public decency. The episode reinforced what dozens of women had already alleged...that Trump's abuse was not hypothetical.

At least two women, including People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff and reality contestant Summer Zervos, later described assaults that mirrored his boast: sudden, unwanted kissing and groping without consent. Others, from models to employees, told similar stories spanning decades. Rather than express remorse, Trump threatened his accusers, mocked them onstage, and vowed to sue. The "Access Hollywood" tape thus became a window into a broader pattern...a man who viewed women as objects of conquest, and a political movement willing to excuse it.

July 2016

Cleveland, Ohio. Trump's Republican National Convention speech called for "law and order" and depicted immigrants as criminals. Hate-crime researchers later identified the speech as a turning point, marking a measurable surge in anti-Muslim and anti-Latino attacks carried out by self-identified Trump supporters.

March 11, 2016

Chicago, Illinois. A Trump rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago was canceled due to violent clashes inside and outside the venue. Trump's speeches had for weeks stoked anger against immigrants and Black activists, and the chaotic scenes previewed the political violence that would define his presidency.

March 9, 2016

Fayetteville, North Carolina. During a Donald Trump campaign rally, a Trump supporter punched a Black protester in the face as he was being escorted out by security. The assault occurred amid Trump's repeated onstage rhetoric encouraging supporters to remove protesters and praising past eras when dissenters were "carried out on stretchers."

After the punch, Trump publicly defended the attacker, saying the protester "deserved it" and that the assailant was "obviously a very passionate person." The man who threw the punch later told reporters, "Next time, we might have to kill him," underscoring how Trump's language at rallies had already normalized physical violence and lethal intent as acceptable responses to political opposition.

Total Injured: 1

March 1, 2016

Louisville, Kentucky. At the Kentucky International Convention Center, Trump repeatedly told the crowd to "get 'em out of here" as protesters were identified. Audience members then assaulted three protesters: Kashiya Nwanguma (shoved through the crowd), Molly Shah (shoved and jostled), and Henry Brousseau (punched in the stomach).

A civil lawsuit—Nwanguma v. Trump—named Trump and rally attendees including white nationalist Matthew Heimbach and Alvin Bamberger, and a federal judge initially found it plausible that Trump's directives incited the crowd's use of force. The Sixth Circuit recounted that audience members "assaulted, pushed and shoved" the plaintiffs as Trump issued the commands, though the appeals court ultimately dismissed the incitement claim in 2018, ruling that Trump's words were protected speech. The assaults themselves were never in dispute.

Injuries: At least 3 (Kashiya Nwanguma, Molly Shah, Henry Brousseau).

February 22, 2016

Las Vegas, Nevada. At a campaign rally at South Point Arena, Trump pointed to a protester being escorted out and told the crowd, "I'd like to punch him in the face." Supporters cheered, and several began shoving and striking demonstrators as security led them away. Reporters on site from Reuters, AP, and BuzzFeed captured multiple instances of Trump supporters hitting or choking protesters while shouting Trump's name. Police intervened as scuffles broke out inside the arena and in the hallway outside.

That evening's violence became one of the earliest and clearest examples of Trump's direct verbal incitement producing immediate assaults. Human-rights monitors and the Southern Poverty Law Center later logged the Las Vegas rally among a dozen events in early 2016 where Trump's remarks preceded crowd violence. Contemporaneous reporting documented protesters being shoved, struck, and dragged from the arena. The event set the tone for a string of similar attacks that followed in Fayetteville, St. Louis, and Tucson, establishing physical aggression as a normalized feature of Trump's campaign culture.

Injuries: Multiple protesters assaulted (Las Vegas rally), within a broader pattern of 30–40 injuries at Trump rallies between Nov 2015 and Mar 2016.

February 1, 2016

Iowa. Trump told his crowd to "knock the crap out of" anyone preparing to throw tomatoes, promising to pay their legal fees. The comment was widely covered and replayed in later incidents where his followers attacked protesters.

February 2016

United States. As violence at his rallies increased, Donald Trump moved from encouraging the physical removal of protesters to openly justifying and rewarding it. After multiple assaults at campaign events, Trump told reporters that protesters "deserved it" and portrayed those who were struck as instigators who invited violence. At a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Trump escalated further, telling supporters, "If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?" He added, "I promise you I will pay for the legal fees," explicitly offering protection to supporters who used force.

By February there was no ambiguity left: the candidate was endorsing the violence and offering to pay for it. Confrontations at his rallies grew more frequent and more severe, and Trump kept defending the attackers and blaming the victims.

Estimated Injured: 5–10 protesters assaulted at Trump rallies.

December 24, 2015

Dallas, Texas. A gunman, Anthony Paz Torres, attacked Omar's Wheels and Tires, a Muslim-owned business, killing one person and attempting to kill four others after asking customers whether they were Muslim; he later pleaded guilty to five federal hate crimes. The attack came just weeks after Trump's December 7 call for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," and reflected a surge in hate crimes targeting Muslims and perceived Muslims that began after Trump's campaign launch in mid-2015.

According to FBI data, anti-Muslim hate crimes rose by roughly 67% from 2014 to 2015—the year Trump entered the race—and assaults against Muslims in 2016 reached levels not seen since the aftermath of 9/11. Civil-rights groups documented dozens of violent assaults, arsons, and murders in which perpetrators cited Trump's language or policies as justification. At least 8 killings and over 200 reported assaults and injuries during the 2015–2017 period have been linked by researchers and prosecutors to anti-Muslim sentiment amplified by Trump's campaign and early presidency.

Total Dead: 1 (Enrique Garcia Mendoza).

Additional Deaths Nationwide: ≈8 linked to anti-Muslim hate violence (2015–2017).

Estimated Injuries: Over 200 assaults causing injury nationwide during the same period.

November 21, 2015

Birmingham, Alabama. During a Trump rally, local activist Mercutio Southall Jr. was punched, kicked, and choked by Trump supporters as security moved to remove him. Trump had just ordered the crowd to remove the protester and later told Fox News that Southall "should have been roughed up." The incident became an early, on-camera example of Trump's rhetoric cueing immediate violence against a named target.

Injuries: 1 (Mercutio Southall Jr.).

November 2015 — March 2016

United States. During his first presidential campaign, Trump's rallies became recurring scenes of physical violence. From the moment he told crowds to "knock the crap out of" protesters and promised to pay legal fees, assaults began erupting in arenas and fairgrounds across the country. His rallies in Birmingham, Alabama (November 21 2015); St. Louis, Missouri (March 11 2016); Chicago, Illinois (March 11 2016, canceled amid clashes); Dayton, Ohio (March 12 2016); and Tucson, Arizona (March 19 2016) all featured assaults and arrests that police and witnesses attributed directly to Trump's inflammatory remarks.

At least a dozen individual victims were injured inside or just outside venues—punched, kicked, dragged, or pepper-sprayed by Trump supporters while security stood by. In Fayetteville, North Carolina, a white Trump supporter punched a Black protester in the face while the candidate onstage said, "Get them out."

In St. Louis, roughly three dozen people were arrested amid clashes and several protesters were left bloodied. In Tucson, a rally attendee repeatedly punched and stomped a protester as security escorted the victim out. Civil-rights monitors from the SPLC and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights reported at least 30–40 protester injuries and over 20 arrests for assault or disorderly conduct during this five-month stretch, almost all tied to Trump's live calls for violence.

The aggression at these events, cheered and sometimes bankrolled by the candidate, was the January 6 mob in embryo.

Injuries: Estimated 30–40 protesters and journalists assaulted or injured at Trump rallies (Nov 2015–Mar 2016), per SPLC , police reports, and press accounts from that time.

September 2015

United States. From the opening months of his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly encouraged physical removal of protesters at his rallies, creating an atmosphere in which violence by supporters was normalized and rewarded. At multiple events in September 2015, Trump singled out protesters from the stage and told crowds to "get 'em out of here," while offering performative caveats such as "don't hurt 'em."

As audience members shoved, grabbed, and struck protesters, Trump reacted approvingly, at times smiling and saying, "I love it." Video from these rallies shows protesters being forcibly ejected by multiple attendees acting in response to Trump's cues.

When questioned afterward about the assaults, Trump declined to condemn the violence and instead portrayed protesters as agitators who invited physical consequences. Supporters learned early that roughing up a protester would be excused, sometimes praised. Confrontations followed all fall and into the primary season, the earliest documented pattern on this page.

Estimated Injured: Approximately 3–5 protesters physically assaulted during September 2015 rallies, based on contemporaneous video evidence and press reporting, with the true number likely higher due to underreporting.

June 16, 2015

New York, New York. At his campaign launch, Trump said Mexico was sending rapists and criminals. In the months that followed, Latinos were assaulted by attackers who echoed his phrases. In Boston that August, two brothers beat a homeless Mexican man with a metal pole and told police, "Trump was right." The speech established the central theme of his politics—criminalizing minorities and legitimizing vigilante violence.

1992–1997

New York and Palm Beach. Jill Harth, Cathy Heller, Temple Taggart McDowell, Amy Dorris, and others accused Trump of groping or forcibly kissing them without consent. Trump denied all allegations. These incidents illustrated a pattern of personal violence toward women that paralleled the coercive tone of his political persona decades later.

1989

New York, New York. In the days following the brutal assault and rape of a white jogger in Central Park, Donald Trump inserted himself into one of the most racially charged cases in modern New York history...not as a public servant or civic leader, but as an amplifier of fury.

At the height of the panic, with police under immense pressure and the city gripped by tabloid sensationalism, Trump spent $85,000 on full-page advertisements in The New York Times, The Daily News, The New York Post, and New York Newsday. The ads screamed in bold print: "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!"

The timing was devastating. Five Black and Latino teenagers...Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise...had just been arrested and interrogated for hours without attorneys or parents present. Coerced confessions were extracted, and their faces were plastered across every front page. Trump's ads appeared days later, fanning the flames of fear and resentment, and effectively calling for their execution before trial. The message was a demand for retribution, couched in nostalgia for a "stronger" era of policing, one in which due process ran second to punishment.

The fallout was immediate. Trump's ads intensified public outrage, hardened racial divides, and influenced the climate of the coming trial. The teenagers...dubbed the "Central Park Five"...were vilified as symbols of urban decay and criminal menace. Years later, jurors from the case would acknowledge that Trump's advertisements were impossible to ignore during deliberations. His intervention didn't merely express an opinion; it shaped the atmosphere of vengeance that surrounded the proceedings.

When DNA evidence and a confession from another man, Matias Reyes, ultimately exonerated the five men in 2002, Trump refused to apologize. Instead, he doubled down, insisting in 2014 that the settlement they received from the City of New York was "a disgrace" and that they were "no angels."

Even as the men rebuilt their lives, Trump continued to portray them as guilty...a refusal that revealed more than stubbornness. It reflected the same punitive worldview that would later drive his political campaigns: a belief that punishment equals justice, that minorities are to be feared, and that law and order means domination, not fairness.

Trump's 1989 ad campaign was an early rehearsal for the politics of vengeance and spectacle that would define his presidency. It positioned him as the voice of white grievance and urban retribution, a role he would reprise decades later in his calls for police crackdowns, Muslim bans, and mass deportations. The Central Park case exposed his instincts with brutal clarity...the reflex to inflame, to scapegoat, and to seek power through the public humiliation of others. It was the prototype.

Early 1980s–1990s

New York, New York. From the earliest days of his career, Donald Trump built his business empire atop patterns of racial exclusion that would later define his political persona. In the 1970s and 1980s, business records, court filings, and first-hand testimony from Black tenants and former employees revealed that the Trump Organization routinely discriminated against Black renters in its New York apartment complexes. Trump's buildings were often accused of keeping "coded" tenant lists...marking applications from African Americans with the letter "C" for "colored"...and instructing building superintendents to lie about unit availability when prospective Black tenants inquired.

In 1973, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a landmark civil rights lawsuit against Donald Trump, his father Fred Trump, and the Trump Organization, alleging "a pattern and practice of racial discrimination" across dozens of properties in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Federal investigators had sent Black and white testers to Trump buildings; Black applicants were turned away while white applicants were immediately shown apartments. Trump denied wrongdoing, famously telling reporters that the suit was "ridiculous" and part of a "government witch hunt," rhetoric that prefigured the deflection and grievance politics of his later campaigns.

Under mounting evidence, Trump settled the case in 1975 without admitting guilt, but the consent decree required his company to change its practices, advertise openings to minority tenants, and report regularly to the federal government. Yet by the 1980s, reports of ongoing discrimination persisted. Former employees described racist slurs within the company, with one Black worker recalling that Trump told managers he wanted to avoid "renting to Blacks" because they would "drag down the neighborhood."

These early patterns of exclusion foreshadowed Trump's later political narrative...a worldview built on racial scapegoating, fear, and hierarchy. His public language shifted from real estate code words to political slogans, but the underlying message remained: whiteness connoted order and safety, while Blackness and brownness represented threat and disorder. The same instincts that once guided who was welcome in a Trump building evolved into the rhetoric that would animate his rallies decades later...portraying immigrants, minorities, and protesters as dangers to be contained or expelled. The 1973 case reads, in hindsight, like an origin story.

Trump-Inspired Violence in America

Overview

From Incitement to Extremism: The Evidence Behind Trump-Era Political Violence

Index of entries

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

Earlier

September 20, 2026

September 20, 2026

September 14, 2026

September 12, 2026

September 12, 2026

September 10, 2026

September 3, 2026

September 2, 2026

August 31, 2026

August 13, 2026

August 11, 2026

July 13, 2026

July 13, 2026

July 10, 2026

July 7, 2026

May 29, 2026

May 18, 2026

March 2, 2026

January 27, 2026

January 24, 2026

January 23, 2026

January 22, 2026

January 15, 2026

January 11, 2026

January 7, 2026

October 8, 2025

October 4, 2025

October 2, 2025

September to October 2025

September 28, 2025

September 8, 2025

August 31, 2025

June 14, 2025

June 2025

Spring to Fall 2025

January — July, 2025

March 15, 2025

January 20, 2025

October 31, 2024

October 16, 2024

October 15, 2024

October 13, 2024

September 29, 2024

September 7, 2024

June 6, 2024

March 16, 2024

March 11, 2024

January 9, 2024

December 16, 2023

December 5, 2023

November 11, 2023

September 29, 2023

September 22, 2023

August 4, 2023

April 27, 2023

March 25, 2023

March 24, 2023

March 4, 2023

October 28, 2022

August 11–12, 2022

August 2022

Spring–Summer 2022

January–December 2021