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.

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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