During a rally Wednesday night in south Florida, Donald Trump called President Obama “the founder of ISIS.” On Thursday morning, CNBC gave Trump an opportunity to clarify that he couldn’t possibly mean that literally, but the Republican presidential nominee didn’t take it. Instead, Trump insisted Obama “was the founder of ISIS, absolutely.”
Later Thursday, Trump joined Hugh Hewitt’s conservative radio show. Asked by Hewitt if he actually meant that Obama created ISIS in the sense that his policies “created the vacuum, he lost the peace,” Trump said, “No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do.”
Trump reiterated the allegation that President Obama is somehow collaborating with a terrorist group out to kill Americans at least one more time Thursday during a speech before the National Association of Home Builders in Miami.
But a day later, Trump now says he didn’t really mean it. In a tweet published Friday morning, Trump attempted to walk back the accusation he couldn’t make often enough the day before, portraying it as “sarcasm”:
Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) "the founder" of ISIS, & MVP. THEY DON'T GET SARCASM?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2016
He later suggested the whole episode was just an elaborate troll of the media:
I love watching these poor, pathetic people (pundits) on television working so hard and so seriously to try and figure me out. They can't!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2016
But it’s not just the media that’s having trouble figuring out Trump — his own staff is struggling too. During an interview Friday morning, CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Trump Organization Executive VP Michael Cohen about his boss’ ISIS comments.
“The question is, should people have doubts about whether or not you can take him at his word?” Tapper asked.
“Well I think you do take him at his word for everything,” Cohen replied.
But as Tapper noted, that’s exactly what the media is trying to do. “That’s how we got into this situation — ‘No I mean founder, I said founder,’” he said.
Donald Trump now says he was being sarcastic when he called President Obama the "founder of ISIS" https://t.co/okvcv5jpwN
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 12, 2016
The controversy is the latest in a string caused by Trump’s mouth since the Republican National Convention wrapped up last month. In late July, Trump encouraged Russian hackers to “find” tens of thousands of emails deleted from Hillary Clinton’s server, adding that media coverage would result in the hackers being “rewarded mightily by our press.” His campaign later tried to spin that as Trump simply saying he wants the emails turned over to the FBI.
Earlier this week, Trump suggested that “Second Amendment people” — gun owners — could be the answer to stopping Hillary Clinton from winning the 2016 election and appointing justices to the Supreme Court. His campaign spun that as Trump referring to the voting power of gun owners.