GOP frontrunner Donald Trump alleged the man who charged the stage during his morning rally in Ohio on Saturday had connections to the Islamic State (ISIS), and he detailed how the Secret Service stopped the man.
“So today, we went to Cleveland second and they were incredible,” Trump began, telling supporters at his evening campaign rally in Kansas City, Missouri on Saturday about what happened earlier in the day. “But before Cleveland, we were in Dayton, Ohio.”
“The crowd was unbelievable,” Trump added. “It was going along and all of a sudden the people in the front row start screaming, ‘Be careful!’”
“I look back and there’s a guy charging the stage,” the billionaire described. “He put on a bull rush!”
“I have to tell you folks, the Secret Service was unbelievable,” he added, giving them credit for stopping the man.
“This guy jumps over a railing,” Trump said, saying that at first the man “was clapping” but then, “boom, he jumps out!”
“The Secret Service guys, he just got to the stage, and the Secret Service guys hit him like you wouldn’t believe,” Trump explained, saying they took him out as the man “tries to make a rush at me.”
“I was ready. I don’t know if I would have done well, but I would have been out there fighting,” Trump charged. “I don’t know if I would have done well, but I would have boom, boom, boom,” Trump said, making gestures of punching. “He’s got to be one very sore person.”
“They bring him into a court and they process him and the judge lets him go,” Trump said of the man. “This was a guy that was looking to do harm.”
“They found his name,” Trump said of his staff. “It was probably ISIS or ISIS-related.”
“My people found this. They go online and they find the guy is playing all sorts of music you wouldn’t be liking, [and] dragging the American flag along the sidewalk,” he said of the man who was also “making all sorts of gestures.”
“That shouldn’t be found out by one of my internet people. This guy should be in jail right now,” he charged. “He should be in jail, and for a judge to let him go is incredible.”
NBC News reports the man was identified as 32-year-old Thomas Dimassimo, who was charged with two misdemeanors.