WATCH: “We know Donald Trump is not particularly indirect.” Rudy Giuliani defends Trump’s 2nd Amendment comments. https://t.co/FMfJfrHXYv
— Good Morning America (@GMA) August 10, 2016
Donald Trump’s surrogates are in overdrive after he hinted that the “Second Amendment people” could put a stop to Hillary Clinton. When the Secret Service has to get involved, you know you may need to take a step back, and the real estate mogul’s team is making appearances everywhere.
First up on the Trump tour was Rudy Giuliani, who popped into action last night (which we’ll get to in a moment) and on Wednesday morning’s episode of Good Morning America. He told George Stephanopoulos how the media couldn’t understand Trump’s point because he’s not an eloquent speaker. But the former mayor believes that if Trump meant to talk about a Clinton assassination, he wouldn’t have done so in a roundabout way that needed interpretation. Nope, Giuliani thinks Trump would have just said it:
“We know Donald Trump is not particularly indirect. You know how speeches go. He was talking about how they [gun rights advocates] have the power to keep her out of office. That’s what he was talking about. With a crowd like that, if that’s what they thought he’d meant, they’d have gone wild.”
Giuliani also told Stephanopolous that the widespread interpretation of Trump’s remarks is due to the Clinton spin machine. This echoes what he said on Tuesday night about how the “corrupt” media doesn’t fully understand the constitution and misconstrued Trump’s comments:
“What he said very clearly was that if Hillary Clinton were elected president, she would get to appoint judges to the Supreme Court, and among the other things that they would do to destroy us, would be to do away with the Second Amendment and your right to bear arms. Now, is there anybody here that doubts that?”
Top Trump advisor Sam Colvis held a similar sentiment to what Giuliani believes. Colvis told CNN that Trump’s speeches are “not as artful as a lot of people might think.” Some folks hoped Trump would have turned a corner by running a more mature campaign after endorsing Paul Ryan and John McCain. But after Tuesday’s comments and the recurring next day PR blitz, it looks like we’re back to square one.
(Via Good Morning America & The Hill & TPM Livewire)