Before Trump spoke Saturday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich said the real estate mogul had created a “toxic environment.”
“There is no place for this,” he said. “There is no place for a national leader to prey on the fears of the people who live in our country.”
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio sounded frustrated when asked if he would support Trump if he was the party’s presidential nominee.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I already talked about the fact that [Hillary] Clinton will be terrible for this country the fact that you are even asking me that question — I intend to support the Republican nominee, but it’s getting harder every day.”
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said he would support whomever was the Republican nominee was, though he described Trump’s canceled event in Chicago as “sad.”
“It is my hope that all of us can appeal to civility, all of us can carry a message of unity that brings us together rather than seeking to divide it,” he said while in Ballwin, Missouri. “Rather than seeking to inflame hatred, we should be bringing people together.”
Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton blamed the violence on Trump’s “ugly, divisive rhetoric.”
“The encouragement of violence and aggression is wrong and it’s dangerous,” she said in St. Louis. “What I saw last night in Chicago was deeply disturbing to me. We have work to do.”
Sanders, too, spoke out again Trump.
“Donald Trump has to be loud and clear and tell his supporter that violence at rallies is not what America is about,” said Sanders.
Trump has courted criticism for remarks appearing to encourage violence against the protesters who have increasingly been disrupting his rallies. In St. Louis on Friday, he mocked those who interrupted his speech and were removed by police, telling them to “go get a job” and one to “go back to mommy.”
“These are people that are destroying our country,” he said at the time, adding, “You know part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long is no one wants to hurt each other anymore and they’re being politically correct the way they take them out so it takes a little longer.”
After his rally in Chicago was called off, Trump told Fox News the protesters there weren’t directing their anger at him.
“This has a lot to do with jobs,” Trump said. “It has a lot to do with the incompetent running of a country.”
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson in Cincinnati, Ohio, Brad Mielke in Key Largo, Florida, Jessica Hopper in Ballwin, Missouri, Liz Kreutz in St. Louis, MaryAlice Parks in Chicago and John Santucci contributed to this story.
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