“Cruz says the responsibility for the violence rests with the protesters. How is that blaming Trump?”
Ted Cruz accused Trump of encouraging the violence and blamed Trump’s campaign of committing violence in the following quotation of his remarks:
[Ted Cruz] I also want to mention something about the events this evening, in Chicago. This is a sad day. Political discourse should occur in this country without a threat of violence, without anger, and rage and hatred directed at each other. We need to learn to have disagreements without being disagreeable, to have disagreements while respecting human beings on the other side. Earlier today over thirty people were arrested in one rally, and then tonight as violence broke out the rally was canceled altogether. Now the responsibility for that lies with protestors who took violence into their own hands. But in any campaign responsibility starts at the top. Any candidate who is responsible for the culture of the campaign, and when you have a campaign that disrespects the voters, when you have a campaign that affirmatively encourages violence, when you have a campaign that is facing allegations of physical violence against members of the press, you create an environment that only encourages this sort of nasty [unintelligible].
[Video was edited, reporter comments and questions, unintelligible wording]
[Ted Cruz] I think the decision should be based on public safety. But I think a campaign bears responsibility for creating an environment when the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence to punch people in the face. The predictable consequence of that is that it escalates, and today is unlikely to be the last such instance. We saw earlier today in St. Louis over thirty arrested. That’s not how our politics should occur. You know, the City of Chicago in 1968 saw some ugly days, when politics descended into hatred and instability and even violence, and it is my hope that in 2016 that we can appeal to our better angels avoid going down that road once again.
“Earlier today over thirty people were arrested in one rally, and then tonight as violence broke out the rally was canceled altogether. Now the responsibility for that lies with protestors who took violence into their own hands.”
I don’t know how much clearer it gets than that.