Donald Trump has warned against a “violent” overturn of his policies, should Democrats win the midterm elections.
The US President appealed to conservative Christian groups, saying November’s vote is a “referendum” on freedom of speech and religion, which is threatened by “violent people”.
In a leaked audio recording that was obtained by the Times, Trump said that Democrats will “overturn everything that we’ve done and they’ll do it quickly and violently.”
“It’s not a question of like or dislike, it’s a question that they will overturn everything that we’ve done and they will do it quickly and violently. And violently. There is violence. When you look at Antifa – these are violent people,” he said.
“In this room, you have people who preach to almost 200 million people. Depending on which Sunday we’re talking about,” the US President told Evangelical leaders.
“I just ask you to go out and make sure all of your people vote,” Trump said.
“Because if they don’t – it’s Nov. 6 – if they don’t vote we’re going to have a miserable two years and we’re going to have, frankly, a very hard period of time because then it just gets to be one election – you’re one election away from losing everything you’ve got.”
“Little thing: Merry Christmas, right? You couldn’t say ‘Merry Christmas’,” he added.
This is not the first time that Trump has warned of violence from US citizens.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, the President said his supporters would be likely to react violently if he did not win the Republican nomination.
“I think you’d have riots,” he said.
The mid-term elections will take place November 6.
