--- title: Donald Trump Says His Supporters Were 'Vicious, Violent' description: Donald Trump on Friday told his supporters they had been "nasty and mean and vicious" at rallies during his presidential campaign canonical: https://time.com/4605647/donald-trump-vicious-violent-supporters/ author: Katie Reilly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-17T14:25:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:45:15.280Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Says His Supporters Were 'Vicious, Violent' During the Campaign og:description: "You were nasty and mean and vicious and you wanted to win, right?" og:url: https://time.com/4605647/donald-trump-vicious-violent-supporters/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4e70d5ad9bc70e2b/6988b35a524fc04802dfa8d0/trump14.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: President Elect Donald Trump Holds Victory Rally In Pennsylvania og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Says His Supporters Were 'Vicious, Violent' During the Campaign twitter:description: "You were nasty and mean and vicious and you wanted to win, right?" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4e70d5ad9bc70e2b/6988b35a524fc04802dfa8d0/trump14.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Says His Supporters Were 'Vicious, Violent, Screaming' During the Campaign > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Dec 17, 2016 2:25 PM UTC  Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally at the Giant Center, Dec. 15, 2016 in Hershey, PA. Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally at the Giant Center, Dec. 15, 2016 in Hershey, PA.Mark Wilson—Getty Images  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Dec 17, 2016 2:25 PM UTC President-elect Donald Trump on Friday [told his supporters](http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/16/politics/donald-trump-supporters-vicious-violent/) they had been “nasty and mean and vicious” at rallies during his presidential campaign. “You people were vicious, violent, screaming, ‘Where’s the wall? We want the wall!’ Screaming, ‘Prison! Prison! Lock her up!’ I mean, you are going crazy. I mean, you were nasty and mean and vicious and you wanted to win, right?” Trump said, speaking in Orlando, Florida, at one of the stops on his “Thank You” tour. “Now it’s much different. Now you’re laid back, you’re cool, you’re mellow, right? You’re basking in the glory of victory,” the president-elect added. Trump’s campaign rallies often [grew violent](http://time.com/2016-violence/), as protesters clashed with supporters. During the campaign, Trump both defended his rallies as the “safest place you can be” and encouraged violence at them. At a rally in Iowa in February, he told supporters to [“knock the crap out of](http://time.com/4203094/donald-trump-hecklers/)” hecklers. He also [offered to pay the legal fees](http://time.com/4256809/donald-trump-legal-fees-protester-punch/) for a support who sucker-punched a protester at a rally in North Carolina. “Whatever happened to the [deplorables](http://time.com/4486437/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-basket-of-deplorables/), right? They’re not so deplorable,” he said Friday. “They’re not so deplorable anymore.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4605647/donald-trump-vicious-violent-supporters/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4605647/donald-trump-vicious-violent-supporters/"},"headline":"Donald Trump Says His Supporters Were 'Vicious, Violent, Screaming' During the Campaign","datePublished":"2016-12-17T14:25:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:45:15.280Z","description":"\"You were nasty and mean and vicious and you wanted to win, right?\"","url":"https://time.com/4605647/donald-trump-vicious-violent-supporters/","keywords":["Donald Trump","2016 Election","Florida","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4e70d5ad9bc70e2b/6988b35a524fc04802dfa8d0/trump14.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katie Reilly","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4e70d5ad9bc70e2b/6988b35a524fc04802dfa8d0/trump14.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Elect Donald Trump Holds Victory Rally In Pennsylvania","caption":"President Elect Donald Trump Holds Victory Rally In Pennsylvania","creditText":"Mark Wilson—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4605647/donald-trump-vicious-violent-supporters/","name":"Donald Trump Says His Supporters Were 'Vicious, Violent, Screaming' During the Campaign"}}]}] ```