Trump: When I Said ‘Punishment,’ I Meant Women Should Punish Themselves for Abortion

In a New York Times profile of Donald Trump‘s campaign, the candidate walked back his comments to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that women should receive “some form of punishment” if they seek an abortion, saying he actually wanted women to punish themselves.

“I didn’t mean punishment for women like prison,” he said. “I’m saying women punish themselves. I didn’t want people to think in terms of ‘prison’ punishment. And because of that I walked it back.”

But the Times reporter Robert Draper dug around and got the real story. Trump “initially saw nothing wrong with his remark and refused to walk it back,” and issued a short noncommittal statement. Trump suddenly changed his mind when he was swamped with questions and requests for comment from over a hundred media outlets.

He then turned to his ally New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and got his team to write another statement. The result was what the public saw: two separate statements with completely contradictory responses released within an hour of each other.

[Image via screengrab]
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