Story highlights
- Critics and supporters debate what Trump meant
- Clinton's campaign is fundraising off the comments
(CNN)The furor over Donald Trump's comments about gun owners' power in the presidential campaign continued Wednesday.
The
Republican candidate's supporters attempted to quell the controversy,
saying either that Trump was joking or that Democrats and the media were
spinning it into something bigger than it was. Many interpreted Trump's
comments as a threat to rival Hillary Clinton.
Corey
Lewandowski, Trump's former campaign manager, said the billionaire
businessman was trying to unite Second Amendment supporters to turn out
to defeat Clinton.
"This was a joke...He wasn't inciting violence," Lewandowski told Chris Cuomo on CNN's New Day.
Ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that the Clinton campaign and the press were misconstruing Trump's words.
"What
he intended is very, very simple -- that [gun owners] should vote
against her," Giuliani said on ABC's Good Morning America. "He had no
idea that anybody would interpret his words that way. It was so obvious
to all of us what he meant."
The controversy erupted on Tuesday afternoon when Trump said at a rally that Second Amendment defenders might be able to stop Clinton.
"Hillary wants to abolish -- essentially abolish the Second Amendment.
By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges,
nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe
there is, I don't know," Trump said. "But I tell you what, that will be a
horrible day, if Hillary gets to put her judges in, right now we're
tied."
Trump said Tuesday evening that he was simply trying to unify gun owners against Clinton in the voting booth.
"This
is a political movement. This is a strong political movement, the
Second Amendment," Trump said to Fox News' Sean Hannity. "And there can
be no other interpretation ... I mean, give me a break."
Maine
Senator Susan Collins, who said she won't vote for either party's
candidate, said on "New Day" Wednesday that she did not think Trump was
inciting violence, but that he has only himself to blame for people
leaping to that conclusion because of his consistent "stream of
inappropriate and reckless comments."
But Clinton supporters continued blasting Trump on Wednesday, saying that violence is never a joking matter.
"Words
matter, particularly from those folks who want to be president of the
United States," Clinton surrogate Christine Quinn, a former New York
City Council speaker, said on CNN's New Day. "To think that joking about
any kind of violence could be funny ... simply reflects a disregard for
the impact of violence."
Former
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm agreed, telling Cuomo that joking
about assassinating a candidate is not presidential.
"It is, in fact, dangerous for the country,' she said.
Bernie King, the daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., took to Twitter to voice her concerns.
"As the daughter of a leader who was assassinated, I find #Trump's comments distasteful, disturbing, dangerous," she tweeted.
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