ERIE, Pa.: It’s the media’s fault. That’s out of context. Never said it in the first place.
Donald Trump’s claim Friday that he was merely being “sarcastic” in accusing President Barack Obama of establishing a terrorist group was his latest attempt to blame others for the uproar over what he says. It’s an instinct that Trump’s opponents say a president can’t possess. Some Republicans seem to have the same concern.
This time, it followed two days of critical headlines and Democratic outrage over Trump’s claim that Obama was the “founder” of the Islamic State group. As Trump repeated the claim more than a dozen times, interviewers sought to ensure Trump wasn’t being misconstrued. Surely, they offered, he meant Obama’s policies had enabled the extremist group’s rise.
“No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do,” Trump said, using one acronym for the group.
Then an about-face Friday. “THEY DON’T GET SARCASM?” he tweeted.
Or was he being sarcastic about the sarcasm? Hours later, he told a rally in Pennsylvania he was “obviously being sarcastic — but not that sarcastic, to be honest with you.”
That it took Trump two days to walk back his widely debunked remark — and then walk back the walk-back — was worrying for Republicans who see such missteps as playing to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s advantage. Equally worrying for some was the fact that he again would not take responsibility for his words.
Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist who advised Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, said there’s a common-sense playbook for dealing with political slip-ups: “Stop the bleeding and put it behind you by apologizing.
“That’s what normal candidates do,” he went on. “However, normal candidates don’t careen from one self-inflicted wound to another on an hourly basis.”
It was only two days earlier that Trump blamed the media for making much ado about nothing after he suggested during a rally that gun rights enthusiasts might find a way to stop Clinton if elected.
Clinton, whose lead over Trump has widened in recent polls of the most competitive states, has seized on those and other eyebrow-raising comments to portray the reality TV star as lacking the temperament to run the nation — Trump has his own argument for why she’s unfit to do so. She’s hammered him for avoiding accountability for his actions.
Trump worked to profit on the fuss over his Islamic State remark. In an email to supporters asking them to donate, Trump accused the “liberal media” of telling “outrageous lies about me.”