Donald Trump has been mocked for fearing protesters would throw “dangerous” fruit at him, with late-night talkshow host Trevor Noah calling it “one of the most crazy defenses I’ve ever heard”.
The revelation came during the former president’s testimony to attorneys representing a group of protesters suing over their violent removal from a Trump campaign rally in 2015.
According to the transcript of the deposition, when asked about his statement to the crowd that “If you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, just knock the crap out of them, would you,” Trump replied: “It’s very dangerous stuff. You can get killed with those things.
“We were threatened,” the president added. “They were going to throw fruit. We were threatened. We had a threat.
Trump also said: “I wanted to have people be ready because we were put on alert that they were going to do fruit.”
“What do you mean ‘do fruit’?” said Late Night host Seth Meyers on Thursday’s episode. “What do you mean you were put on alert? There’s an alert system for fruit? It’s like the homeland security threat level? Red’s tomato, yellow is for banana and green is for avocado.
“You know what they say,” Meyers added, “if you get hit with an avocado, you’re toast.”
Trump claimed in the deposition that he became aware of the threat of being beaned by a tomato because the Secret Service warned him:
“We were told. I thought Secret Service was involved in that, actually. And you get hit with fruit, it’s very violent stuff. Tomato, when they start doing that stuff, it’s very dangerous. There was an alert out that day.”
Perhaps aware of the potentially serious consequences of admitting he had intended security staff or other rally attendees to commit violence, Trump insisted his “knock the crap out them, would you” comment was a joke.
“It was said sort of in jest. But maybe, you know, a little truth to it. 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 very hard.”
The videotaped deposition took place in New York’s Bronx county in October 2021. Noah, on his show, simply read the transcript aloud, because “no comedy writer is going to come up with something funnier than Trump’s deposition”.
