Donald Trump upended his tumultuous campaign once again by saying Tuesday that supporters of gun rights could stop Hillary Clinton from naming Supreme Court justices, a remark taken by many as an allusion to assassination.
Trump often makes comments that can be interpreted more than one way _ with both benign and malignant connotations. Ambiguously worded statements that can be read as incitements or appeals to prejudice have been a core part of his rhetoric.
Tuesday's remark, at a campaign event in Wilmington, N.C., marked an extreme example.
"Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment," he said, referring to the constitutional protection of the right to bear arms. "If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know."
As media coverage of the remark surged, advisers to the Republican presidential nominee insisted he had been referring only to nonviolent political action by gun rights supporters.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who introduced Trump at a campaign rally later in the day in Fayetteville, N.C., said suggestions that Trump had been encouraging violence were corrupt efforts by Clinton and her supporters to hurt Trump's image.
"It proves that most of the press is in the tank for Hillary Clinton," Giuliani said. "They will buy any lie, any distortion, any spin that the Clintons put out."
Even for a candidate who takes pride in breaching political protocol, however, Trump's comment marked an extraordinary turn. The fact that it could be interpreted as a suggestion of violence against a rival candidate broke what has long been a taboo in American politics.
Notably, no prominent Republican elected officials stepped forward to defend their party's nominee. Congressional leaders made clear that they did not plan to do so. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has often criticized Trump, planned to address the issue at a news conference after polls close in his Wisconsin primary Tuesday evening.
The controversy came at a particularly bad time for Trump, whose support in recent days has plummeted in polls among key voter groups, easing the way for defections by senior Republicans.
Just the day before, in an effort to stem the damage, Trump had given a speech on the economy, delivered from a prepared text and accompanied by suggestions from campaign aides that he was turning a page after a week of self-inflicted damage to his campaign.
That same day, 50 former top Republican national security officials released a letter saying that Trump's erratic behavior, lack of self-control and poor temperament, among other things, would endanger the nation if he took power as commander in chief. And Susan Collins of Maine had become the fifth of her party's senators to publicly withhold support from Trump, writing a lengthy opinion column that denounced his intemperate language as a "complete disregard for human decency"
Trump's Second Amendment remarks reinforced precisely that image. They wiped out whatever lingering attention his campaign might have hoped to gain for his proposals on taxes and the economy. And for already nervous Republicans, they served as a blunt reminder that no matter how often Trump aides promise the candidate will stay on message, he repeatedly has proven unwilling _ or unable _ to do so.
For Democrats, the remark came as a gift, one they gladly seized upon to reinforce a key theme of their campaign _ that Trump is dangerously unstable and cannot be trusted with the presidency.
"A person seeking to be the president of the United States should not suggest violence in any way," Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement.
Other Democrats were more pointed. "Don't treat this as a political misstep," Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., wrote on Twitter. "It's an assassination threat, seriously upping the possibility of a national tragedy & crisis."
Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, herself a victim of gun violence, warned that Trump's words "may provide inspiration or permission for those bent on bloodshed."
Democratic Senate candidates rushed out statements demanding that their opponents withdraw support for Trump.
Democrats were not the only ones to criticize the GOP nominee.
Michael Steel, who was a top adviser to Jeb Bush and former House Speaker John Boehner, said a president should never condone violence, apart from military protection of the United States.
"The constant violent, brutish talk from Donald Trump," Steel said, "is unworthy of the office he seeks."
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Secret Service said the agency was aware of Trump's remark, but declined to comment further.
