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On October 25, a couple of Secret Service agents came to the home of comedian and actor Tom Arnold. The agents were there to make sure that Arnold didn’t pose a credible threat to the president of the United States. With the agents’ permission, Arnold recorded the interview and later shared it with Mother Jones.
You can watch their interview with Tom Arnold here.
The agents came to check on Tom Arnold because of a couple of tweets that the comedian had put out in October. After a Trump rally in which Trump praised Representative Greg Gianforte for body slamming a reporter, Arnold reacted by challenging the president to a fight. Arnold wrote, “I say put up or shut up @realDonaldTrump Me vs You. For America. First body slam wins. Any Rally. Any Time. Between now & the midterms. #FridayFeeling.”
Soon afterwards, Arnold put up a picture of Kathy Griffin and wrote, “Next time Kathy won’t be holding his fake head!”
The Secret Service agents started out by reassuring Arnold that they believe in free speech and that he has a right to say whatever he likes. But they also wanted to know whether he was likely to act on his threats. So, they asked him whether he knew martial arts, and whether he knew how to make an IED. They asked him whether he had any plans to attend a Trump rally, and whether he was planning to travel to DC to confront the president. They also asked him some questions about anger management.
Arnold, sitting with his feet up in his livingroom, answered their questions calmly.No, he has never been trained in martial arts, and he doesn’t know how to make any kind of bomb. No, he isn’t planning to track down the president, and he certainly isn’t planning to take a swing at him.
Arnold and Trump were once friends. Arnold’s ex wife, Roseanne Barr, remains a strong Trump supporter. But Arnold told the Secret Service that he stopped supporting Trump long before he became a candidate for the presidency; he said he was turned off when Trump started calling for Barack Obama to make his birth certificate public.