Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday said “only the haters” seized on his recent comments about “Second Amendment people” possibly stopping Hillary Clinton or her Supreme Court picks and that the controversy over his feud with the parents of a fallen U.S. war hero has been “put to bed.”
“On the Second Amendment, everybody came to my defense because there was nothing said wrong,” Mr. Trump said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“I’m talking about the power of the voter, and nothing was said wrong, and only the haters tried to grab onto that one and it was very unsuccessful,” he said. “We’re talking about it has tremendous support and tremendous power at the voting booth, and that was all.”
At a rally earlier this week, Mr. Trump had been talking about the dangers of Mrs. Clinton’s selecting Supreme Court justices.
“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” Mr. Trump told a crowd in North Carolina. “Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don’t know.”
Mrs. Clinton’s campaign had seized on the comments, calling them “dangerous.”
Mr. Trump had also been feuding with the parents of Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004, after Khizr and Ghazala Khan appeared at the Democratic National Convention last month and Mr. Khan criticized Mr. Trump.
“As far as Mr. Khan, I think it’s been said by everybody, I think that’s been very well talked about, and that’s been put to bed a long time ago,” Mr. Trump said Thursday.
Asked about criticism that the feud with the Khans was a mistake, Mr. Trump said, “You’ll have to define what a mistake [means].”
“We’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about economics, and we’re here to talk about finance, and we’re here to talk about our infrastructure,” Mr. Trump said. “But it’s been put to bed for a long time, and I don’t think there’s any reason for you to reopen it.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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