- Donald Trump said "pineapples, tomatoes, bananas, stuff like that" could be thrown at him at protests.
- Trump's concerns were revealed Tuesday night, in his sworn deposition for an upcoming Bronx trial.
- The case alleges Trump directed his security guards to attack protesters outside Trump Tower in 2015.
Donald Trump worried that "dangerous" fruits could be flung at him by protesters, according to newly-released excerpts from his sworn deposition for an upcoming trial in New York.
"It's very dangerous stuff," Trump said in the deposition, invoking a fruit-basket worth of potential projectiles. "You can get killed with those things."
Trump expressed his concerns while under oath in October for a lawsuit that alleges he sicced his security on protesters outside Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.
He was being asked about his past statements condoning violence at rallies, including one in 2016 when he told supporters that if anyone threw a tomato at him, they should "knock the crap out of them," and he'd pay the legal fees.
That's when the deposition turned fruity.
"And you said that 'if you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, just knock the crap out of them, would you.' That was your statement?" asked attorney Benjamin Dictor, who represents protesters who are suing Trump, his business and his chief of security.
"Oh yeah," Trump answered, according to the transcript. "It was very dangerous."
"What was very dangerous?" the lawyer asked.
"We were threatened," Trump replied.
"With what?" the lawyer asked.
"They were going to throw fruit," Trump said of protesters at the rally, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "We were threatened. We had a threat."
The lawyer followed up: "How did you become aware that there was a threat that people were going to throw fruit?"
Trump answered, "We were told. I thought Secret Service was involved in that, actually. But we were told. And you get hit with fruit, it's — no, it's very violent stuff. We were on alert for that."
Here the lawyer clarified the record.
"A tomato is a fruit after all, I guess," he asked the former president.
"And you know what--" Trump continued.
But he was quickly interrupted, the transcript shows. The lawyers held a brief side discussion on tomatoes. Were they fruit? Or vegetables?
"It has seeds," offered attorney Jeffrey L. Goldman, there to represent Trump's campaign, also a defendant in the lawsuit.
Trump broke in.
"It's worse than tomato. It's other things also," he said, according to the transcript.
"But tomato, when they start doing that stuff, it's very dangerous. There was an alert out that day."
Dictor then asked, "Who were you speaking to when you said --"
"The audience," Trump answered.
"So you were speaking to the audience when you said if they saw someone getting ready to throw a tomato, just knock the crap out of them, would you," Dictor asked.
"That was to the audience," Trump answered. "It was said sort of in jest. But maybe, you know, a little truth to it. It's very dangerous stuff. You can get killed with those things."
Dictor asked, "So you were trying to incentivize people to engage in violence?"
"Objection," said the campaign's lawyer.
Trump answered anyway.
"No, I wanted to have people be ready because we were put on alert that they were going to do fruit. And some fruit is a lot worse than — tomatoes are bad, by the way. But it's very dangerous.
"No," the former president continued, "I wanted them to watch. They were on alert. I remember that specific event because everybody was on alert. They were going to hit —they were going to hit hard."
Dictor then asked, "Do you have any knowledge as to whether or not anybody was found to have tomatoes in their possession on that date?"
Trump said he didn't know. No tomatoes were thrown, he said. Still, "it was a serious threat," Trump continued.
"The speech was good," he added.
Dictor later asked if Trump had expected his security guards to personally "knock the crap out of" any tomato-tossers.
Here, Trump began to muse on the universe of possibilities, fruit-wise, and the potential for widespread injury — and even death — among audience members.
"Well, a tomato, a pineapple, a lot of other things they throw," he said. "Yeah, if the security saw that, I would say you have to — and it's not just me, it's other people in the audience get badly hurt. Yeah, I think that they have to be aggressive in stopping that from happening.
"Because if that happens," he continued, "you can be killed if that happens."
Asked if "getting aggressive" meant "the use of physical force," Trump agreed.
"To stop somebody from throwing pineapples, tomatoes, bananas, stuff like that, yeah, it's dangerous stuff," he said.