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In reversal, Trump says IS claim about Obama was sarcastic

Donald Trump on Friday attempted to walk back the widely criticized false claim he repeatedly made over the last two days that President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were “co-founders” of ISIS – saying he was being sarcastic.

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Yet even as he worked to quell one campaign controversy, Trump appeared to spark another late Wednesday when said he was “fine” with trying Americans suspected of terrorism in military tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. “It’s absurd for him to say that Obama and Clinton are founders of ISIS – and he can’t blame the media for this”, Stewart added.

Sen. Chris Murphy of CT on Friday offered his take of Donald Trump’s claim that his comment that President Barack Obama “founded” ISIS was merely “sarcasm”. Trump has previously referred to each as ISIS’s most valuable player as well.

In a Thursday interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump had fiercely defended his original word choice.

“You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace”, Mr. Hewitt said during their exchange.

“I just do not think insults and bullying is how we are to get things done”, Clinton said as she laid out her economic plan Thursday in Warren, Michigan. In the past couple of weeks, he said both Democrats should get a most valuable player award from the terror group for their roles in starting it. “His, the way he got out of Iraq was that, that was the founding of ISIS, OK?”

Caption + Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks a group of pastors at the Orlando Convention Center, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016, in Orlando, Fla.

“Donald Trump has shown that he lies every single day and then the next day he just tries to claim it was sarcasm”, he told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on “New Day”.

Trump frequently says, to contrast himself with Clinton, that he opposed the war – but in interviews before the invasion he did voice support.

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“But he’s not sympathetic to them”. On Friday morning, Trump sought to backtrack his claim, saying, “They don’t get sarcasm?” “He hates them. He’s trying to kill them”, Hewitt said.

The Clinton team responded Thursday by calling the assertion outlandish.

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A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll shows Clinton widening her lead in four key swing states, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Colorado, with double digit leads in Virginia and Colorado.

Donald Trump Backtracks on Obama ISIS Founder Claim Hillary Clinton's Economic Speech and More