Donald Trump: I'm "starting to agree" Clinton should be in jail
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Donald Trump, ending his first week as the official nominee of the Republican Party, returned to settling primary campaign scores on Friday at a series of rallies in Colorado -- and after almost two weeks hearing deafening chants of "lock her up" about his Democratic opponent for the White House, Hillary Clinton, he finally stopped showing restraint.
"You know what? I'm starting to agree with you," Trump said, to the delight of the crowd at a rally Friday afternoon in Colorado Springs.
"You know it's interesting," Trump continued. "Every time I mention her, everyone screams 'Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!' And you know what I do? I've been nice but after watching that performance last night -- such lies -- I don't have to be so nice anymore. I'm taking the gloves off, right?"
The "performance" he was referring to was Clinton's speech Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention. Trump lamented the fact that she didn't use the speech to congratulate him on winning the nomination - or as Trump put it, "I thought she'd give me a big, fat, beautiful congratulations."
Trump, of course, has given Clinton no such congratulations himself.
He was asked by Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren about the historic nature of the Clinton candidacy on Wednesday night, and he declined to give her any credit.
"Well, I think that you are going to have a woman. I think she's the wrong woman," Trump told Fox News. "Now, with that being said, some day, and I think it's not going to be in the very distant future, you will absolutely have a woman be president, and I look forward to that."
On Friday, Trump, determined to focus on the past primary season, rehashed a number of dormant controversies and found some new targets, including a local fire marshal and a retired four-star general.
He vigorously defended himself on claims that he was referring to Fox anchor Megyn Kelly's menstruation last summer ("I was talking about her nose. Maybe her ears.") and that he had mocked a disabled New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski ("With the reporter, I spent so much money on working with the disabled.").
Trump even turned to insulting the local fire marshal, Brett Lacey, by claiming that Lacey wasn't letting more of the crowd into a gymnasium at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, because he supported Clinton's candidacy.
"We have thousands of beautiful, wonderful, great people outside, and we have in the room next door over a thousand people," Trump said. "They won't let them in. And the reason they won't let them in is because they don't know what the hell they're doing."
He added, "Hey, maybe they're a Hillary person. Could that be possible? Probably. I don't think there are too many of them."
Lacey, for his part, in an interview with CBS affiliate KKTV took the high road.
"There's an old adage that when a fire marshal walks into a room, milk curdles," said Lacey. "So because we're always looking out for public safety and trying to make certain venues go off successfully and safely, sometimes there are people that aren't very happy with some of the rules and regulations we're required to enforce. But it doesn't bother me at all."
According to a local newspaper, Lacey was honored as a Citizen of the Year in February for his role in responding to the Colorado Springs mass shooting at Planned Parenthood in November.
At the end of the Colorado Springs rally, Trump, who is usually handed pictures and magazine covers to sign on the rope line, was given something else -- two babies, who he then turned around and posed with for the cameras. Trump couldn't help cameras catching one of the babies starting to cry while in his arms.
The whirlwind day continued after that.
Trump later did interviews with local affiliates - a traditionally risky move for candidates, who might not have a grasp on issues important to the local population. Trump was asked by a KUSA reporter whether the federal government owns too much land in the country - an issue especially important to ranchers in the West. The Republican nominee didn't seem prepared.
"Well, I'm gonna look into that," Trump said. "And it's a question I get asked an awful lot out here, and I'm gonna take a very serious look into that. And I will be - we'll get back to you on that one because a lot of people are wanting to really have policy on that. And I'm gonna come up with it, and I'm in the process of doing it right now, and I have some pretty strong opinions, but I won't talk about it right now."
One fundraiser and a couple of other interviews later, Trump ended his day in Denver, at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum, housed in a 1930s-era former Air Force base.
At the end of a long campaign week, the business mogul still had some room left for insults, this time targeting Gen. John Allen, a retired four-star Marine who once led all coalition troops in Afghanistan before retiring in 2013. Allen endorsed Trump's rival for the White House and spoke on Clinton's behalf at the Democratic National Convention. This didn't sit well with Trump, who called him a "failed general" on Friday night.
"They had a general named John Allen," Trump said, "and he, I never met him, and he got up, and he started talking about Trump, Trump, Trump. Never met him. And you know who he is? He is a failed general. He was the general fighting ISIS. I would say he hasn't done so well, right? Not so well. "
On the same day that Trump's pick for vice president, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, decried name-calling in politics in an radio interview with Hugh Hewitt, Trump spent it throwing verbal slings everywhere he could - or as he told it in Colorado Springs: "I'm going to start talking about them like you never believed. I'm going to hit them -- now, obviously I'm talking about with my verbal. So, I'm going to get them. I'm going to let them have it. Maybe a tweet or maybe this or that, but I'm going to hit them hard."