Florida GOP official under fire for jokes about running over anti-Trump protesters

Republican Brevard County commissioner Bryan Lober is coming under heavy criticism after making Facebook posts that joked about running over people protesting against President Donald Trump.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Lober recently responded to a Facebook post made on the "Political Voice of Brevard County" Facebook page about planned protests against Trump ahead of his 2020 campaign kickoff.

One person on the page then made a joke about running over protesters -- and Lober replied by saying he "wouldn’t recommend using a snow plow" to run over the protesters because "it might look intentional."

In a separate controversial Facebook post, Lober mocked Brevard Democratic Chair Stacey Patel by saying he might be willing to let her have abortions so she couldn't produce more "litter."

"I’m not typically a big abortion proponent but in Patel’s case, I might look the other way as I can only imagine what a scourge of humanity (and on our economy) her offspring would prove to be given that her litter would likely be raised with an entitlement mentality, zero work ethic and taught the hypocritically racist and sexist position that the white man is evil," he wrote.

The posts have since been deleted but Patel was able to get screen captures of them while they were still up.

In response to requests for comment by the Sentinel, Lober insisted that his posts should be taken as harmless jokes.

"First and foremost, my comments on Facebook are made in my individual capacity, not in my capacity as an elected official," he said. "Moreover, it would be a mischaracterization to claim that either post was intended to be anything but facetious as should be evident by both the content and from the context in which they were written."