The statement was a pivot for Gingrich: less than one week ago at the Aspen Ideas Festival, he called talk that he would be selected “wild speculation”, saying that even if he were to be chosen, he would have to have a “very, very long talk” with his wife, Callista, and then “another long talk” with the presumptive Republican nominee. Although Jewish activists and many others have denounced the image as being anti-Semitic, Trump repeatedly said Wednesday that the six-point star is “just a star”, not the Jewish Star of David, and that media outlets that covered the controversy are “racially profiling”.
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“They took the star down”, he added.
“I don’t even know why I need so much money”, Trump said last week at a campaign rally in Bangor, Maine.
“She’s the one that started the dialogue”, he said of Clinton, suggesting she wanted to deflect attention away from the FBI investigation regarding her use of a private email server.
Sykes asked Ryan on Tuesday if Republican officials should pressure Trump to ensure his campaign is more careful on social media. On Tuesday night, Trump praised Hussein for being “so good” at killing terrorists. He wrote, “Where is the outrage for this Disney book?”
“So the star – which is a star, not the Star of David”, he told the Cincinnati crowd.
“I have a son-in-law who’s Jewish Jared who’s a great guy”, Trump said to try and prove he is not anti-Semitic.
Gingrich also said “five or six people” are being vetted for the role and that he anticipates Trump will announce the Thursday or Friday before the Republican National Convention begins July 18. “I’ve seen a lot of people who end their statuses on Facebook and Twitter with stars, for whatever reason”. Late past year, for example, Trump retweeted inaccurate crime statistics that vastly overstated the percentage of whites killed by blacks.
“All of a sudden, it turned out to be – in the minds of the press only because it could’ve been a sheriff star or a regular star – my boy comes home from school, Barron, he draws stars all over the place, I never said ‘oh that’s a Star of David, Barron'”.
The actions have also annoyed Republicans who find themselves forced to answer questions about Trump’s behavior. On a day when Clinton’s controversies dominated the airwaves, Trump resurrected his own.
The tweet was embraced and celebrated by several prominent white supremacists, who considered the tweet a signal from Trump.
Over the weekend, the Donald Trump presidential campaign sent out a tweet on Twitter that was supposed to be focused on Hillary Clinton’s corruption, but instead, triggered a renewed media-fueled debate over allegations of antisemitism. He later vowed to temporarily bar the world’s more than 1.5 billion foreign Muslims from entering the USA, a position from which he recently backed away. Trump’s campaign has aired none.
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Now Trump has found a kindred spirit in Gingrich, who similarly seems to relish being in front of the camera, while knowing how, and when, to smash the lens for maximum effect.
