‘I love Texas,’ Trump tweets after video shows supporters box in Biden bus on highway
President Donald Trump tweeted his appreciation to supporters seen on video boxing in a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris campaign bus traveling in Texas Friday.
“I love Texas,” the president tweeted.
A video, provided to Storyful by John Hinojosa, shows cars and trucks decorated with Trump flags surround the bus — which was carrying campaign staff — as it drove on Interstate 35 in New Braunfels headed from San Antonio to Austin. Hinojosa told Storyful he saw the incident between 2:30 and 3 p.m.
At least two campaign events in Texas were canceled over “safety concerns” after the incident, according to Storyful, and at least one minor crash was reported.
Trump tweeted another version of the video Saturday night writing “I love Texas.”
The president also referenced the incident at a Saturday night rally in Montoursville, Pennsylvania.
“Did anybody see the picture of their crazy bus driving down the highway that’s surrounded by like hundreds of cars and they’re all Trump flags all over the place,” he said, according to CSPAN video.
Democratic nominee Biden said Sunday in Philadelphia that “we’ve never had anything like this,” The Guardian reports.
“At least, we’ve never had a president who thinks it’s a good thing,” he said, according to video posted to Twitter by The Hill on Monday.
Neither Biden nor his running mate, Harris, were on the bus when it happened, CNN reports, and campaign staff on board were traveling in the state to urge supporters to vote early.
Katie Naranjo, chairperson of the Travis County Democratic Party, tweeted that the Trump supporters followed the bus “throughout central Texas to intimidate Biden supporters.”
“They ran into a person’s car, yelling curse words and threats,” Naranjo tweeted. “Don’t let bullies win, vote.”
Staff reported the incident to law enforcement, who helped the bus reach its destination, party officials told The New York Times.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation told The Texas Tribune it’s “looking into” the incident.
Texas GOP Chairman Allen West “dismissed” the outlet’s questions about the incident.
“It is more fake news and propaganda. Prepare to lose ... stop bothering me,” West said in a statement, according to the Texas Tribune.
Tariq Thowfeek, Texas communications director for Biden’s campaign, said in a statement to The New York Times that the Trump supporters put staff and others “in harm’s way” instead of engaging in “productive conversation.”
“Our supporters will continue to organize their communities for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Democrats up and down the ballot, and to the Texans who disrupted our events: We’ll see you on November 3rd,” Thowfeek said in the statement, according to the Times.
Harris on Friday visited Fort Worth, where Biden and Trump supporters briefly clashed outside the event at First Saint John Cathedral, The Star-Telegram reports.
Trump is narrowly leading Biden in Texas, historically a Republican stronghold.
Poll analysis site FiveThirtyEight shows the president up by an average of 1.5 percentage points in Texas on Sunday afternoon. But multiple polls conducted recently show Biden leading by narrow margins. FiveThirtyEight says Trump is “slightly favored” to win the state, with a 66% chance.
Trump carried the state in 2016, with 52.2% of the vote, according to Ballotpedia.
This story was originally published November 1, 2020 at 11:01 AM with the headline "‘I love Texas,’ Trump tweets after video shows supporters box in Biden bus on highway."
