SAME PAGE: Cruz, Rubio and Kasich criticize Trump for creating ‘environment’ for Chicago protest.

“I wouldn’t say Mr. Trump is responsible for the events of tonight,” said Rubio, “but he is most certainly, in other events, has in the past used some pretty rough language, saying in the good old days we used to beat these people up, or I’ll pay your legal bills if you rough them up. So I think he bears some responsibility for the general tone.”

(Days earlier, at the March 10 debate in Miami, Rubio said: [archive] “I know that a lot of people find appeal in the things Donald says cause he says what people wish they could say.” So, if these people said what they wished to say, would they then “bear some responsibility” for what thugs do to them?)

[Cruz:] “In any campaign, responsibility starts at the top. Any candidate is responsible for the culture of a campaign. And when you have a campaign that disrespects the voters, when you have a campaign that affirmatively encourages violence, when you have a campaign that is facing allegations of physical violence against members of the press, you create an environment that only encourages this sort of nasty discord. . . . I think a campaign bears responsibility for creating an environment when the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence, to punch people in the face.”

(First, how is it that a campaign is responsible for “creat[ing] an environment that encourages . . . discord” when it is accused by others of violence — especially when that allegation is false, as video evidence shows? [UPDATE: The video has been deleted. See the GIF at this link.] Second, Trump has not urged his supporters to punch those disrupting his rallies. On the contrary, he often says to treat them well. He did once say, of a disruptor whom he said was “throwing punches,” that he would “like to punch him in the face.” Here, Trump was criticizing how “protesters” get away with being violent [archive] while people who fight back are punished. Anyway, Lyin’ Ted immediately repeated his lie: [archive] “When the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence, to punch people in the face, the predictable consequence of that is that it escalates.”)

[Kasich:] “Tonight the seeds of division that Donald Trump has been sowing this whole campaign finally bore fruit, and it was ugly.”