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       (CNN)Donald Trump feared being killed by thrown fruit.

       Yes, you read that right.

       In a recently released transcript of a deposition as part of a lawsuit filed by a group of protesters who alleged they were assaulted by Trump's security guards at a 2015 campaign rally, the subject of fruit -- and fruit being flung, in particular -- came up.

       Here's the full -- and fully epic -- back-and-forth between Trump and Benjamin Dictor, an attorney representing the protestors.

       Dictor : Okay. And you said that, 'If you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, just knock the crap out of them would you.' That was your statement?

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       Trump : Oh, yeah. It was very dangerous.

       Dictor : What was very dangerous?

       Trump : We were threatened.

       Dictor : With what?

       Trump : They were going to throw fruit. We were threatened. We had a threat.

       Dictor : How did you become aware that there was a threat that people were going to throw fruit?

       Trump : We were told. I thought Secret Service was involved in that, actually. And you get hit with fruit, it's -- no -- it's very violent stuff. We were on alert for that.

       Trump attorney Jeffrey Goldman: A tomato is a fruit after all, I guess. ... It has seeds.

       Trump : It's worse than a tomato, it's other things also. But tomato, when they start doing that stuff, it's very dangerous. There was an alert out that day.

       Dictor : Who were you speaking to when you said ...

       Trump : The audience.

       Dictor : So you were speaking to the audience when you said if they saw someone getting ready to throw a tomato, just knock the crap out of them, would you?

       Trump : That was to the audience. It was said sort of in jest. Buy maybe, you know, a little truth to it. It's very dangerous stuff. You can get killed with those things. ... I wanted to have people be ready because we were put on alert that they were going to do fruit. And some fruit is a lot worse than -- tomatoes are bad by the way. But it's very dangerous ... they were going to hit -- they were going to hit very hard.

       Amazing, no?

       There is a long history of American politicians being barraged by fruit.

       Richard Nixon was hit by " eggs, tomatoes [and] vegetables" in an anti-war protest in 1970. He survived.

       Tomatoes were thrown at then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's motorcade during a 2012 trip to Egypt. She was not hurt.

       In 2009, a protester threw two tomatoes at former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at the Mall of America in Minnesota. He missed. Both times.

       And perhaps the most famous incident involving a politician getting something thrown at them happened on December 14, 2008, when an Iraqi journalist threw not one, but both of his shoes at then-President George W. Bush. Bush ducked.