Former President Donald Trump told his supporters in Georgia to “be nice” after a “lock her up” chant aimed at Vice President Kamala Harris broke out during a rally on Monday.
The chant started after Trump, 78, called on his supporters to “stand up” and tell the 60-year-old vice president on Election Day that she’s “fired.”
“No, no .. be nice,” the Republican nominee for president said after letting the crowd at his Atlanta rally shout for a few seconds.
“You know, they used to say that with Hillary [Clinton], and I’d always go, ‘Relax. Take it easy. We’re going to win. We’re going to win. Just please relax,’” Trump recalled, referencing the frequent “lock her up” chants at his rallies in 2016.
The former president noted that calls for him to “lock up” Clinton over her State Department email scandal intensified after he beat her in the 2016 election, but that he didn’t ask his Justice Department to pursue charges against the former first lady.
“‘Easy. We won. We’re gonna have unity,’” Trump recalled telling his supporters eight years ago.
“I could’ve locked her up, but I didn’t want to lock her up,” he said. “She’s the wife of the president of the United States, previously, and she was secretary of State. I said, ‘That would be so terrible for our country.’”
“And then they try and do it to me,” Trump added, referring to the string of criminal indictments against him after announcing his 2024 White House run.
“They went after their political opponent and they made me more popular. Can you believe it?” the 45th president argued.
Trump himself has been the subject of “lock him up” chants at Harris campaign rallies.
Harris, 60, typically reacts to the chants be telling her supporters that the court system will “handle that.”
Last week, in reference to Trump, President Biden told Democrats in New Hampshire that “We gotta lock him up.”
The remark was used by Trump’s legal team in recent brief in his federal 2020 election interference case to argue that the charges were politically motivated.
Biden, 81, claims he meant to say that Trump needs to be locked up “politically.”
