Friday was not a particularly good day for Donald Trump. He finally admitted President Obama was born in the United States, but two of the three things he said in his very short statement were brazenly false (that Hillary Clinton started the birther controversy and that he “finished” it). Then, the press turned on him for his “political rick-roll” press conference and for barring reporters from the hotel “press” tour. To top it all off, he went and made another glib remark about assassinating Clinton — one that’s even harder to blame on interpretation than the last one.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Miami, Trump once again went after Clinton on guns, telling the crowd that “she wants to destroy your Second Amendment,” another claim that he’s frequently made that simply isn’t true.
Trump then moved on to Clinton’s personal security.
“I think what we should do is she goes around with armed bodyguards, like you have never seen before. I think that her bodyguards should disarm, right? Right? I think they should disarm. Immediately, what do you think? Yes? Yes. Yeah. Take their guns away. She doesn’t want guns. Let’s see what happens to her. Take their guns away! Okay? It’d be very dangerous.”
First of all, as the Republican nominee, Trump is also protected by the Secret Service, so he has just as many “armed bodyguards” as she does. Even the noncontroversial aspect of his attack doesn’t hold up. But then to suggest that something should happen to her that can only happen if her Secret Service agents aren’t armed? There isn’t a lot of room for ambiguity there.
Last month, when Trump suggested that “Second Amendment people” could somehow stop Clinton from picking judges, his campaign tried to explain away the comment by suggesting that the “Second Amendment people” in question have “great political power” and “will be voting in record numbers.” In this case, however, it’s unclear how disarming Clinton’s protectors will impact how people vote for her. And though the NRA, which has endorsed Trump, similarly followed his campaign’s lead on the voting spin last time, the pro-gun organization has long operated as if the Second Amendment is a “manual for vigilante justice.”
Let’s see what happens to her… It’d be very dangerous.
The Clinton campaign was quick to denounce the remarks. Her campaign manager, Robby Mook, called the comments “out of bounds,” noting in his statement that Trump “has a pattern of inciting people to violence” — which he does.
“Whether this is done to provoke protesters at a rally or casually or even as a joke, it is an unacceptable quality in anyone seeking the job of Commander in Chief,” Mook wrote. “He is unfit to be President and it is time Republican leaders stand up to denounce this disturbing behavior in their nominee.”
Brian Fallon, Clinton’s press secretary, similarly called for Republicans to rebuke Trump for his comments, but also posed the question of whether this was Trump being Trump or actually a campaign tactic:
Either @KellyannePolls suddenly determined jokes about assassination would help boost Trump with independents… or the dog is off his leash
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) September 17, 2016
Republicans across country should be forced to say whether they are OK with Trump's comments inciting violence against Hillary Clinton
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) September 17, 2016
It’s a reasonable question whether this was an intentional tactic. If people are talking about whether Trump is inciting violence against his opponent, it might mean they aren’t talking about his abrupt pivot away from birtherism and his lack of apology for fueling that racist conspiracy for five years.
It would also be hard for anyone to argue that it was just Trump being Trump and speaking off the cuff — even if it wasn’t in his prepared remarks for the event — because the same comment then went out in a tweet at 1:53 AM and is still on his official Twitter feed as of Saturday morning:
Crooked Hillary wants to take your 2nd Amendment rights away. Will guns be taken from her heavily armed Secret Service detail? Maybe not!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 17, 2016
No one from the campaign nor the Republican Party — nor the Secret Service, for that matter — has commented on the remark.