Last night, while Trump was dinging Ted Cruz for only tepidly supporting waterboarding—which is not really true—a woman in the audience shouted, “He’s a pussy!” Trump was clearly delighted, but danced around the word for a few seconds, scolding the woman for saying a “terrible thing,” before repeating the “terrible thing” to the audience. The crowd went wild.
Trump, habitual line-stepper that he is, was asked to explain himself this morning on Morning Joe.
"All I was doing was repeating. So I was doing everybody a favor." trump on the p word
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 9, 2016
It may just be that I’m watching (and loving) The People vs. O.J. Simpson right now, but this defense needs a name, so I’ll christen it the “RT defense.” After Trump retweeted a neo-Nazi account and a preposterous stat sheet that claimed that blacks killed 81 percent of white homicide victims, he defended himself by arguing that tweeting is different than retweeting. When recently criticized for retweeting a sexist take on Megyn Kelly, Trump said, “That’s a retweet. That’s different.” The distinction being that amplifying a horrible claim is far less important than being the one who initially said it.
That’s exactly how he’s defending his actions last night. He didn’t say that Ted Cruz was a pussy, he just repeated somebody else saying it.
Update: He’s literally using the defense now.
"It was like a retweet." @realDonaldTrump on repeating a supporter’s colorful comment about Ted Cruzhttps://t.co/jvGyit3Bau
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) February 9, 2016