Trump Jokes Around as Supporter Punches Protester in the Face

President Donald Trump mocked a protester as they were being physically attacked by his rallygoers. At a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, Monday, Trump’s address was interrupted by a fight in the stands. A video of the incident showed a bald man in a T-shirt punching a woman in the face, pulling her hair, and hitting her repeatedly. “Paid protester,” the president said flatly, as the angry crowd chanted, “USA! USA! USA!”Multiple security officers approached and roughly dragged the woman away, appearing to leave the man who attacked her in his seat.“He’s a paid protester, they’re all paid. They get paid by the lefties in order to destroy our country. They’re scum. But he’s going back home to mom. He’s going back home to mom,” Trump said. It’s not clear whether he was referring to the protester as “he” to be derisive or because he genuinely could not see. “Look at him. Look at him, terrible. Don’t we love law enforcement? Oh, he’s gotta go on a diet. He’s a fat guy. Wow. Wow,” Trump said, the crowd bursting into cheers. “Gotta go on a diet fast, we all do.”The crowd continued to chant: “USA! USA! USA!”holy shit -- a protester at the Trump rally gets physically assaulted after they interrupt the rally by a man who punches her in the face. Trump smears the protester as a "fat guy" https://t.co/DI1TG2uGBH— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 12, 2026 Trump’s unwillingness to condemn his supporters’ violence (and in many cases, his decision to encourage it) is obviously nothing new. But the failure to address violence that unfolds before his own eyes is still shameful behavior from any leader—let alone the president of the United States.Read more about Trump’s rallies:On the campaign trail in Ohio, President Donald Trump decided that complimenting Senator Jon Husted’s posterior was a winning strategy. “I don’t do this with men very often. I started examining his body. And I looked and I watched up and down. I watched his ass and I looked at the whole. And then I looked at his hands. Look at his hands, he’s got these, like, claws. And I got it. You are a great athlete. I didn’t know that because he doesn’t talk about that. Congratulations, now they finally know. That was very good,” Trump said.Trump on Jon Husted: "I don't do this with men very often. I started examining his body, because I didn't know he was a great athlete ... I looked at his ass" https://t.co/VD8jJpireB— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 12, 2026 Trump didn’t stop at Husted’s derrière. He also praised the senator’s jawline, adding, “[W]hy was he such a good footballer? Look at the jawline, he’s tough as hell.” It’s doubtful that Husted will appreciate the comments, because the voters in Ohio don’t rank his posterior as one of their top issues. Husted is in a tight race with Democratic opponent and former three-term Senator Sherrod Brown, with the latest polls showing the two in a dead heat. The fact that Trump is even campaigning for Husted is a huge crack in the GOP’s armor, as Trump won the state in the last three presidential elections. Based on the country’s current anti-Trump sentiment from the Iran war, whimsical tariffs, and abysmal economy resulting from both, Democrats could retake both houses of Congress and throw Husted out on his apparently shapely behind in November. Why Trump thinks that talking up the incumbent senator’s keister is the key to victory is anybody’s guess, although senility and cognitive decline come to mind. Rather than give Husted a slap on the rear, the president’s comments are more likely to make both of them the butt of many jokes. It looks like Kimberly Guilfoyle may be out of a job. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are considering removing Guilfoyle as America’s newly minted ambassador to Greece over allegations that she engaged in illegal conduct, the Associated Press reported Monday. In a series of reports, Guilfoyle has been accused of threatening a host country official and offering access to Trump administration officials in return for the quiet payment of a $100,000 credit card bill. She was also caught bragging about her close ties to two Greek tycoons who she said were bankrolling her travels as she begged to get into a dinner with Eric Trump. As the ex-fiancé of Donald Trump Jr., Guilfoyle’s close ties to the president’s inner circle could earn her some amount of grace. But Rubio has become increasingly frustrated as the reports about Guilfoyle’s alleged misconduct have multiplied, one U.S. official told the AP. Rubio was particularly pissed off after he arrived in Greece last week entirely unaware of the shitstorm that was about to rain down on America’s ambassador there.The State Department’s inspector general is looking into the allegations, a second U.S. official told the AP, but could not say whether a formal investigation had been launched. Read more about Guilfoyle:A Republican super PAC sent at least $20,000 to Portland, Oregon, in support of Senator Susan Collins’s reelection campaign. Collins is a senator from Maine.This multithousand-dollar gaffe was made by the Defending Main Street Super PAC Inc, which sent a commercial calling Collins’s Democratic opponent Troy Jackson “taxin’ Troy Jackson.” Too bad virtually none of the people who will see it can vote in that election.Republican Main Street Partnership President Sarah Chamberlain told NBC News Monday she was “absolutely furious” and blamed the ad buyer, Cross Screen Media, for a “ridiculous” error. “The buyers made a mistake on one of the placements. It’s down now and they’re running it in Portland, Maine,” Chamberlain said. “It has nothing to do with us. I would never run an ad in Portland, Oregon, for Susan Collins, for Christ’s sake.”Collins certainly could’ve used that money, as multiple polls have the incumbent slightly behind Jackson in the upcoming November election. Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton concocted a securities fraud case as part of a sweeping crusade to target the state’s growing Muslim community. A nine-page memorandum reviewed by Texas Monthly outlined all of the ways that the state government could thwart the construction of the East Plano Islamic Center, or EPIC City, a large housing development and mosque outside of Dallas. The memo warned that “foreign adversarial interests” might be seeking to “abuse” and “exploit” Texas, and “undermine our communities from the inside,” Texas Monthly reported Monday. The memo had no letterhead, signature, or date but was disseminated to different agency heads by members of Abbott’s office and his advisers. Sure enough, the memo’s language has since reappeared in press releases announcing official inquiries from a range of state agencies, including the Texas Funeral Service Commission, Texas Workforce Commission, and the Texas Rangers, among others. Travis Iles, then-commissioner of the Texas State Securities Board, had a meeting in March 2025 with Daniel Mittnacht, a political adviser; Trevor Ezell, Abbott’s general counsel; and Caleb Gunnels, an assistant general counsel. The group went over the memo, and after the meeting, Iles assembled a team of six career regulators and attorneys to investigate whether EPIC City’s investors were being told enough about the project, Texas Monthly reported.Iles’s investigation found that EPIC City’s fundraising didn’t seem to have anything to do with securities at all. Investors in EPIC City had purchased units that would guarantee them the opportunity to purchase property lots at a discounted price—not securities that would passively derive profits. That’s when Paxton got involved. In October 2025, Paxton’s office issued a press release alleging that EPIC City’s developer had “flagrantly and undeniably” broken securities laws—without ever discussing the matter with agency officials. Iles quickly realized that Paxton’s office was expecting him to provide the pretext for a securities-fraud case. Iles was pressured by Mittnacht, Ezell, and Gunnels to refer the case to Paxton’s office. Eventually, he did, but he declined to say that EPIC City’s developers were selling securities, and he made clear that he had not reviewed the attorney general’s supposed evidence. Iles even suggested that Paxton’s office should sue under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, rather than pursue securities-fraud charges. Paxton was undeterred. He announced a securities-fraud lawsuit against EPIC City’s developers on December 5, 2025. Fox News reported that Iles had claimed the developer “sold securities without meeting registration or exemption requirements,” and had referred the case to the attorney general “after identifying ‘flagrant’ violations.”“Horseshit,” Iles wrote in the subject line of an email the next day. In the body of the email, he included a link to the Fox News article and his assessment of the case: “Corrupt.”In a press release on December 8, 2025, Iles said that the assertion the EPIC City’s developers were selling securities was “a wholly false statement” that had been wrongly attributed to him by Fox News. Shortly after, he was asked to resign. He quietly stepped down as commissioner and left the agency in April 2026.