Ever since this nation has begun to rise up against racism and police brutality in the United States, after the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and now the shooting of Jacob Blake, Trump has been making a platform out of condemning the left for supposedly condoning violence.
However, a new video that’s currently making the rounds on social media is once again proving that Trump and his supporters are taking the preach, don’t practice route with their talking points.
During the Republican National Convention, a protester from Portland traveled to Washington, D.C. to protest the event. During his time in D.C., the protester claims that he was punched in the head by one of the staunchest, most devout evangelical supporters of Donald Trump’s around — and video of the alleged attack seems to corroborate his account of the attack.
Anthony Harrington, an anti-Trump protester who traveled to D.C. from Portland to protest the RNC, was biking past a group of Trump supporters who had just left from Trump’s speech Thursday night, yelling “Fuck Trump, fuck you!”
Eric Metaxas, a writer, talk radio host, and devout Trump supporter was among the brought 1,500 people who were in attendance at Trump’s White House speech and was on the street with a crowd of people as Harrington was biking by.
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Footage of the incident shows Harrington biking by the crowd, yelling his protest, and being punched in the back or side of the head.
The Daily Beast has spoken with Harrington, who identified his assailant as Metaxas. The footage also appears to show that the assailant’s clothing matched what Metaxas was wearing on the night in question.
The assailant can be seen running backward in the street after the punch was thrown, as law enforcement officers eventually pull Harrington away.
The staunch Trump supporter has yet to reply to requests for comments, but it seems as though even his allies believe that it was him, and are condoning his act of violence against the protester.
Rod Dreher, a Christian writer and close friend to Metaxas wrong in a blog post, “Sometimes you have to use violence to preserve order.”
Harrington’s identification and Dreher’s apparent confirmation aren’t the only things that serve as evidence of Metaxas being the assailant in the video. At one point in the clip, a woman can be heard shouting “Eric!” multiple times. And in addition to Metaxas’ clothing that night matching that of the attacker in the video, the woman walking next to the assailant is wearing an outfit that matches that of Metaxas’ wife, who was with him on that evening of the convention.
Harrington participated in a series of private messages on Instagram, asserting that he made no threatening moves towards the individual who assailed him. The video also shows that Harrington was biking far away enough from the individual he identified as Metaxas that the assailant had to take several steps toward Harrington in order to hit him.
Thus far, no other footage of the incident has surfaced.
Washington court records show that Metaxes has not been charged with any crimes as of yet, and Harrington claimed that he was briefly handcuffed until someone showed police video on the incident to prove that he was assaulted. In speaking with The Daily Beast, Harrington said he’s floating the idea of a civil suit, but has no plans to file criminal charges against his assailant as it’s just “not my style.”
But please, tell me again which side is “violent”?
You can watch the clip of the assault here:
You can read the full report from The Daily Beast here.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license
