There are jokes, and then there"s the stuff that comes out of Donald Trump"s mouth.
As you"re probably aware from having been alive for the past 14 months, Trump"s presidential campaign has been plagued from the start by gaffes and fallout from the candidate"s often bizarre attempts at humor.
Many believe that the real estate mogul"s "jokes" have veered into criminal territory in recent weeks, such as when Trump suggested that he hopes Vladimir Putin was able to hack into Hillary Clinton"s email server.
Now, Team Trump is once again scrambling to justify a shocking off-the-cuff remark about Clinton, and this time it"s being widely interpreted as a veiled, violent threat.
After claiming that Clinton seeks to "abolish" the Second Amendment (The former secretary of state has repeatedly insisted that she has no intention of doing so.), Trump went on to suggest that his anti-gun control supporters may be able to forcibly "stop" Clinton:
"If she gets to pick her judges – nothing you can do, folks," Trump told his crowd.
"Although, the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don"t know."
For obvious reasons, many have taken the comment as Trump"s suggestion that gun owners should use force – and firearms, if necessary – to prevent Clinton from taking office.
Not surprisingly, the Trump campaign quickly issued a statement explaining that the remark had been misinterpreted by the media:
“It’s called the power of unification—2nd Amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power,” Trump senior aide Jason Miller said in a statement sent out shortly after the rally.
“And this year, they will be voting in record numbers, and it won’t be for Hillary Clinton, it will be for Donald Trump.”
This latest controversy comes on the heels of a week that"s been rife with PR debacles for Trump.
While most have been fairly minor (the 70-year-old former reality star kicked a baby out of a campaign rally and accepted a Purple Heart medal offered to him by a wounded war veteran), the impact on Trump"s popularity has been considerable.
Right-leaning media outlets have attempted to distract from Trump"s hellish week by raising (thus far unfounded) concerns about Hillary Clinton"s health, but it doesn"t look as though they"ve been successful.
Clinton now leads Trump by a double-digit margin both nationally and in key battleground states.
