Hillary Clinton says Donald Trump is partly to blame for protests around his events, including violent clashes that broke out in San Jose on Thursday night.
Clinton told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead” Friday that while she condemns “all violence in our political arena,” it is up to Trump to also condemn violence and set a standard that both his supporters and those protesting against him should follow.
“I condemn all violence in our political arena. I condemned it when Donald Trump was inciting it and congratulating people who were engaging in it,” Clinton said after a campaign event in Culver City, California.
But Clinton said Trump has “set a very bad example.”
“He created an environment in which it seemed to be acceptable for someone running for president to be inciting violence, to be encouraging his supporters, now we’re seeing people who are against him responding in kind,” Clinton said. “It should all stop. It is not acceptable.”
Protesters and supporters of Trump clashed in the streets of San Jose after the presumptive GOP nominee held a rally in the city. As the rally let out, scuffles broke out between pro- and anti-Trump demonstrators.
Clinton said that Trump has “lowered the bar” on civility and questioned whether it is now a surprise that “people who don’t like him are stepping over that low bar.”
“I don’t think it is,” Clinton said.
Clinton is currently in the midst of a five-day swing through California ahead of the state’s primary on Tuesday. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, her Democratic opponent, has spent much of the last three weeks in the state, barnstorming in a last ditch effort to win the Golden State.
Clinton declined to directly say why she is having trouble closing Sanders out, but did tell Tapper that she felt things would go well on Tuesday.
“I am very proud of the campaign we are running here. I believe on Tuesday I will have decisively won the popular vote and I will have decisively won the pledged delegate majority,” Clinton said. “You can’t get much more than that in a primary season.”
CNN’s delegate count has Clinton 70 delegates away from clinching the nomination, a barrier she is likely to pass next week as the final contests take place.
Sanders has said that he plans to fight for the nomination all the way to the convention, hoping a win in California will convince superdelegates — or Democratic leaders and elected officials who each have one vote at the convention — to back him.
Clinton said after Tuesday she will “reach out to try to unify the Democratic Party and I expect Senator Sanders to do the same.”
“And we will come together and go to the convention in a unified way,” Clinton added.