Ex-CIA Chief: Trump’s Suggestion that His Supporters Shoot Hillary Clinton Would Land Anybody Else in Jail
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said Tuesday that Donald Trump’s apparent “joke” about the “Second Amendment people” assassinating Hillary Clinton suggested “either a very bad-taste reference to political assassination and an attempt at humor, or an incredible insensitivity.”
“It may be the latter,” Hayden, a retired Air Force general who also directed the National Security Agency, told Jake Tapper on CNN. “An incredible insensitivity to the prevalence of a political assassination inside of American history — and how that is a topic that we don’t ever come close to, even when we think we’re being light-hearted.
“If someone else had said that outside of the hall, they would be in the back of a police wagon now with the Secret Service questioning him,” Hayden said.
Trump told supporters in Wilmington, N.C., that Clinton could appoint liberal justices to the Supreme Court if she wins in November.
He then said that nothing could be done. Then, he referenced the “Second Amendment people.”
“Hillary wants to essentially abolish the Second Amendment,” Trump said.
The Constitutional amendment guarantees Americans the right to keep and bear arms.
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” Trump said. “Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”
The Clinton campaign quickly slammed the remarks, with manager Robby Mook saying in statement: “This is simple — what Trump is saying is dangerous.
“A person seeking to be the President of the United States should not suggest violence in any way,” he said.
Hayden, who was among 50 top national security chiefs who signed a letter opposing Trump, told Tapper that his first response to the nominee’s remark was “that was more than a speed bump.
“That is a very arresting comment . . . I’m just telling you the way I accepted it.”
He further ripped Trump, saying that “if he governs close to the language he has used in the campaign, I fear for our future.”
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, who is advising Trump on national security issues, disagreed that the Republican’s remarks suggested violence against Clinton.
“He has no intention of suggesting a violence against Hillary Clinton,” he told Wolf Blitzer on CNN. “I don’t believe that is possible.”
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Michael-Hayden-Slams-Trump-Second-Amendment/2016/08/09/id/742869/
