GOP frontrunner Donald Trump on Sunday denied that a week in which his campaign manager was charged with battery and Trump himself said women should be punished for having abortions wasn’t that bad a campaign week after all.
“I don’t know that it’s been the worst week in my campaign,” he told John Dickerson on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I’ve had many bad weeks and I’ve had many good weeks. I don’t see this as the worst week in my campaign. But certainly, I’ve had some weeks, and you’ve been reporting on them, where that was the end. And then the next week, you see poll numbers where they went up and everybody’s shocked.”
Trump dodged a direct answer to Dickerson’s question about what he’d change in abortion laws if he were president. “Well, look, look, I mean, I know where you’re going and I just want to say a question was asked to me. And it was asked in a very hypothetical. And it was said, ‘Illegal, illegal.’ I’ve been told by some people that was an older line answer and that was an answer that was given on a, you know, basis of an older line from years ago on a very conservative basis. …”
“The laws are set now on abortion and that’s the way they’re going to remain until they’re changed,” Trump said.
The candidate continued to stand by his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who was charged with batter last week for his role in an incident in Jupiter, Fla. Michelle Fields, a reporter for Breitbart News, said she was manhandled by Lewandowski as she tried to speak to Trump.
The incident was captured on videotape but what it reveals has been disputed by the Trump campaign.
“Am I going to ruin a man’s life by firing him when I look at a tape that I supplied?” Trump said. “I mean, that tape was from one of my facilities. We have cameras all over the place for security. I do a good job with security. And we have cameras. And I looked and I said, ‘What is — what did he do?’ I mean, you know, do you destroy a man’s life?”
Trump blamed Fields, the reporter, for the incident. “She was not supposed to be asking any questions. The news conference was over. She bolted in from nowhere. She went in between Secret Service. She grabbed my arm, which everybody sees. I went like that, like, ‘Who is this person?’ And she started asking questions. She wasn’t supposed to do it.”