Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump on Tuesday suggested that “Second Amendment people” – gun owners – could stop Hillary Clinton from winning the White House and picking new US Supreme Court justices.
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Rather, who was anchor of the “CBS Evening News” from 1981 to 2005, took to Facebook on Tuesday after Trump said “Second Amendment people” could deal with Hillary Clinton and the judges she appoints if elected ― comments many interpreted as a call to have her shot and killed.
“When he suggested that “The Second Amendment People” can stop Hillary Clinton he crossed a line with risky potential”, Rather wrote in his post Tuesday night. By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks.
But then he added without elaboration that maybe supporters of the second amendment could figure out a way.
Mrs Clinton’s campaign manager immediately denounced Mr Trump’s remarks, saying the Republican nominee was trying to incite violence.
The veteran newsman took to Facebook to say that Trump’s statement about his Democratic rival had “crossed a line with unsafe potential” and reached “a new low and unprecedented in the history of American presidential politics”.
Hillary Clinton was quick to reply, tweeting: “A person seeking to be the President of the United States should not suggest violence in any way”.
“But the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know”. “They are doing everything they can to destroy Donald Trump”. “This is a tremendous political movement”.
The latest controversy to strike Trump’s campaign arose, as they often do, out of an offhand quip at a boisterous campaign rally. “You are responsible for what people hear”, he said.
Contrary to Mr Trump’s remarks, Mrs Clinton has made her support for gun rights a key piece of her stump speech in a bid to pre-empt attacks from Mr Trump and groups like the NRA.
Michael Hayden, a former Central Intelligence Agency director who was among 50 Republican national security experts to denounce Trump in a letter, told CNN, “If someone else had said that said outside the hall, he’d be in the back of a police wagon now with the Secret Service questioning him”. A day after Clinton committed to participating in all three scheduled debates, Trump said he, too, would do three debates, though he seemed to leave himself an out. A day earlier, ME senator Susan Collins became the latest to declare she would not vote for her party’s nominee, explicitly pointing to his “constant stream of cruel comments”.
On Monday, Trump seemed to be heeding Republican advice to stick to a message of criticizing Clinton and other Democrats while putting forward economic policy proposals in a speech in Detroit.
“Don’t treat this as a political misstep”.
Overall sentiment on social media posts on Trump’s remarks was more negative than positive, at a ratio of 2.5 to 1, according to the social media analytics firm Zoomph.
The 50 prominent national security officials said in their letter on Monday that Trump would be “the most reckless president in American history”.
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