Perhaps surprisingly, in making his comments Trump appeared to to ignore what might have created a bad news cycle for his opponent, after the father of Florida shooting suspect Omar Mateen turned up unauthorized in the audience of a Hillary Clinton rally the same day.
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Media desperate to distract from Clinton’s anti-2A stance.
A former head of the Central Intelligence Agency told CNN, “If someone else had said that outside the hall, he’d be in the back of a police wagon now with the Secret Service questioning him”.
At a later rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina Trump avoided addressing his controversial comments.
“That he would make Tuesday’s comment amid sinking poll numbers and a wave of Republican defections suggests that when bathed in the adulation of a crowd, Mr Trump is unable to control himself”. “It’s an assassination threat”.
Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head during a mass shooting, tweeted – “We must draw a line between political speech and suggestions of violence”.
He said the Republican nominee was talking about the lobbying and voting power of “Second Amendment people”.
In a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday, 19 percent of GOP voters say they want Trump to drop out of the presidential race, while another 10 percent say they don’t know whether or not their standard-bearer should take the unprecedented step of ending his campaign four months early.
When asked about Democrats’ statements equating the remark to condoning violence, Trump said, “Oh no, no”. It listed 50 prominent Republicans and independents who have endorsed her so far, including Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
In other words, here’s the answer I want you to give. “This is simple – what Trump is saying is risky”, campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement Tuesday.
“Donald Trump just suggested that someone shoot Hillary Clinton”, said the tagline in a video clip circulated by Priorities USA Action, a political action committee backing Clinton.
“Of course not”, Pence said in an interview with NBC Philadelphia.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani of NY, a Trump backer, told a crowd in Fayetteville, North Carolina, that the uproar “proves that most of the press is in the tank for Hillary Clinton”.
Nearly immediately the NRA jumped to Trump’s defense, posting to Twitter that Trump was “right”. “Clinton. We must take people at their word”, said Swalwell on Twitter.
House Speaker Paul Ryan refused to comment but continued to stand by his party’s nominee.
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Speaking about Trump’s presidential bid, he added: “You get to a certain point in this business and you’re not just responsible for what you say, you are responsible for what people hear”. “I hope he clears it up very quickly”, he said.
