Donald Trump’s campaign threw surrogate Katrina Pierson under the bus less than a week ago for suggesting President Obama and Hillary Clinton were directly responsible for Capt. Humayun Khan’s death. Yet this didn’t stop the frequent CNN guest from telling The Lead anchor Jake Tapper that her candidate’s comments about Clinton and Second Amendment supporters weren’t at all about instigating the Democratic rival’s assassination. Instead, Pierson stuck to her National Rifle Association-endorsed guns and spun a story about “gun grabber” Clinton’s plans for the Supreme Court.
In her usual circular manner, Pierson argued Trump “was saying exactly what he said”:
“He was talking about Hillary Clinton and gun control, essentially, which is something that’s been talked about a lot on the campaign trail. Hillary Clinton is a gun-grabber, and everyone knows that if she’s in a position to appoint Supreme Court justices, she will do everything she can to remove the Second Amendment. Mr. Trump was clearly pointing that out.”
The surrogate also referenced the Trump campaign’s official statement, which emphasized the “power of unification,” Second Amendment supporters, and the NRA’s approval of Trump’s comments. However, Tapper refused to let Pierson off the hook since she didn’t really answer his question. This question concerned what Trump may or may not have been suggesting supporters do to stop Clinton’s selection of Supreme Court justices.
Pierson’s response? “That’s actually not what he was talking about,” she maintained while, for all intents and purposes, nearly repeating precisely what got Trump in trouble in the first place:
“Just before that he was saying what could happen… He doesn’t want that to happen, and in order to stop that, people [who] support their Second Amendment rights need to come together and get out there and stop Hillary Clinton from winning in November.”
It’s plain to see that Pierson, and to varying degrees the campaign’s statement, are talking about Second Amendment supporters coming out to vote for Trump and against Clinton. Yet aside from the statement’s vague reference to the election (i.e. “[Second Amendment supporters] will be voting in record numbers”), both stuck to more forceful (and potentially violent) words like “stop.”
So, um… yeah.