Donald Trump goes on defense after more violent rally incidents

• Donald Trump blamed protesters for the violence perpetrated against them at his rallies – a second man in two weeks was sucker-punched at a Trump event on Saturday. “At what point do people blame the protesters,” Trump asked ABC.
• “These are professional agitators,” he added, without evidence. He specifically blamed Saturday’s violence on a protester who wore a Ku Klux Klan costume to a Tucson rally, in an apparent allusion to Trump’s dithering condemnation of white supremacist groups.
• He also said he would tell supporters not to riot at the Republican convention should he lack the delegates for a secure victory there. “We don’t condone violence,” he said. “And we have very little.
• The Republican frontrunner for president also defended his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, whom was captured on video with a hand on a protester at the same Tucson rally. “I give him credit for having spirit, he wanted them to take down those horrible profanity laced signs,” Trump said, repeating a campaign statement that Lewandowski did not in fact touch the protester, despite the video. Lewandowski faces a separate criminal complaint for allegedly assaulting a reporter.
• Ohio Governor John Kasich rejected calls to drop out of the Republican primary, and insisted that he would manage to sweep a victory out of a contested convention even though he trails Trump and Ted Cruz by hundreds of delegates. “Nobody’s going to have the delegates they need going to the convention,” he told CBS. “Why don’t they drop out? I’m the one that can win in the fall.”
• Senator Lindsey Graham pleaded with Kasich to quit so that anti-Trump Republicans could coalesce around Cruz, the only candidate with a mathematical chance to beat the businessman outright. “John Kasich is the most electable Republican [but] I don’t think he has a chance to win,” Graham told CBS. “Mr Trump is an interloper and a demagogue of the greatest proportions.”

• Democratic underdog Bernie Sanders hinted at a quiet campaign to persuade superdelegates to his cause: “I think it might be a good idea for superdelegates to listen to the people in their own state.”
• He also argued that although Hillary Clinton “creamed us” in the deep south, he would find success in the progressive west.
• And a surprising poll out of Utah found that the state, a five-decade stalwart for Republicans in the general election, would swing to the Democrats by double digits for Sanders against Trump. Clinton had a narrower, two-point lead over Trump in the same poll.