Donald Trump said Monday he would consider having his attorney general file criminal charges against activists who have called for the killing of police officers.
"I think we're going to have to look into that," Trump told Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly in a telephone interview ahead of his introduction of his wife, Melania, at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
O'Reilly noted that people do have a constitutional right to free speech, but Trump said calls for killing police constitute a threat.
"At a minimum, we're going to have to be watching because that's really bad stuff, and it's happened more than once," Trump said.
Three Baton Rouge law enforcement officers died on Sunday in what authorities called an ambush, and five officers were killed earlier this month
in Dallas during a protest against police killing of black men across the country.
"Do you believe the group Black Lives Matter is a fuse-lighter in the assassinations of these police officers?" O'Reilly asked.
"In certain instances they are," Trump said. "And they certainly have ignited people … I think it's a very, very serious situation, and we just can't let it happen."
People are free to say what they want up to a point, Trump said, but "when you are calling death to police and to kill the police, essentially, which is what they said, that's a real problem."
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