True to form, the Republican’s answer meandered for a while and included dubious claims about his lack of involvement in the arrangement, before he got to the heart of the matter.

Q: Do you have a response to people who critical of your settlement?

TRUMP: It was the most violent thing I've ever seen in politics -- what they did. And yet if I say, 'let's look at this one,' they say, 'Weaponization!' We think anybody involved should partake. You're talking about peanuts.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-05-20T18:55:39.973Z

“People were destroyed,” Trump said, referring to his allies under the Biden administration. He added, “We’re reimbursing those people for their legal fees, and for their costs, and for anybody involved, but they destroyed people. … It was the most violent thing I’ve ever seen in politics, what they did.”

Just so we’re all clear about the context and relevant details, when the incumbent president identified “the most violent thing” he has ever seen in politics, he wasn’t talking about the insurrectionists who violently attacked the Capitol in his name while violently clashing with police officers as part of an unprecedented attack on American democracy.

Rather, Trump was instead talking about efforts to hold them and their allies accountable.

That’s utterly bonkers, though it was also a timely reminder that when Trump uses the word “violence,” he often means it as a synonym for stuff he doesn’t like....

If the president wants to take seriously the scourge of political violence, that would be a welcome change. But what Trump seems far more eager to do is redefine the word “violence” in ways that he thinks suit his partisan purposes.