Donald Trump Shatters World Record For Walking Back His Own Comments

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On Friday, Donald Trump offered up this comment on the Orlando shooting: “It’s too bad that some of the young people that were killed over the weekend didn’t have guns attached to their hip….Had people been able to fire back it would have been a much different outcome.”

Presumably Trump figured that this was the “strong” pro-gun position, only to discover that even the NRA thinks it’s not a great idea to mix firearms and alcohol. So today he Trumpsplained that he was “obviously” referring only to “additional guards or employees.”

This is, obviously, a lie, as even the lightest perusal of his original remarks proves. Nonetheless, the term of art for this is that he “walked back” his comment. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Trump has practically made a career of walking back his endless buffoonery. The screen cap below of a Google News search for “Trump walks back” displays it in all its glory.

I totally ripped off this idea from Andrew Sprung, but it really requires its full length to do it justice. As Andrew says, “Perhaps some of these proposals didn’t evince quite the level of deliberation we could wish for?”

What really gets me is why Trump’s supporters continue to believe a word he says. He’s gonna build a wall? Sure. He’ll never walk that back. Honest.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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