Rachel Maddow Implies Throwing Fruit at Political Rallies is Ok in Takedown of Trump’s Flying Tomato Phobia

Rachel Maddow tacitly endorsed throwing objects at others Wednesday in a takedown of former President Donald Trump’s fear of flying fruit.

In a segment where everyone involved ultimately lost, Maddow homed in on the former president’s apparent fear of airborne tomatoes.

Trump is being sued by a number of people who allege they were assaulted by members of his security staff in 2015.

Thanks to a video deposition from the case from October in New York, we know Trump expressed a great deal of concern he might have been “killed” by a rogue tomato, banana or pineapple, while speaking publicly.

At the heart of the deposition and lawsuit was a comment Trump made in February of 2016. He asked his supporters  at a rally to “knock the crap” out of anyone who threw a tomato his way.

Maddow read an intriguing transcript from the deposition on her show Wednesday.

Trump was asked, “Is it your expectation that if your security guards see someone about to throw a tomato that they should knock the crap out of them?”

He responded in the affirmative.

“A tomato, a pineapple, a lot of other things they throw,” Trump said. “Yeah, if the security saw that, I would say you have to — and it’s not just me, it’s other people in the audience get badly hurt — yeah, I think that they have to be aggressive in stopping that from happening. Because if that happens, you can be killed if that happens.”

Trump was also asked if a flying tomato justified force against the thrower. He responded, “To stop somebody from throwing pineapples, tomatoes, bananas, stuff like that, yeah… It’s dangerous stuff.”

Apparently one of Trump’s biggest fears is being struck by food, which Maddow highlighted in what was a laughter-inducing monologue.

“Ok, sir, and how about we give you the nuclear codes for the United States of America,” Maddow dismissively quipped after she read Trump’s quotes from the deposition. “I mean, we have to get real. If there is an incoming banana, somebody is going to have to make the hard call, because we might all die”

She concluded, “Did somebody throw a pineapple at this man as a baby?”

While poking fun at an idiosyncratic nature of her political nemesis, the host tacitly endorsed those he said he feared would target him on stage.

Trump’s stated concerns about killer bananas, pineapples and tomatoes could be described as irrational, if not intentionally hyperbolic.

But Maddow took the low road by implying a political candidate should take in stride the prospect of being hit with an object — even a tomato.

Watch above, via MSNBC.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.