When even Donald Trump thinks you’ve gone too far, you’ve probably gone too far.
A Fox News commentator is the most prominent of a slew of conservative voices to suggest President Barack Obama faked his tears during an emotional address about gun control on Tuesday. But when Trump was asked for his thoughts on the same network, he said Wednesday morning he believes the president’s emotions were “sincere.”
In the lengthy speech Tuesday afternoon, Obama announced executive action to tighten the rules for gun ownership in America. The president wiped away tears as he talked about the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, where 20 children and six adults were gunned down.
The emotional moment became the hallmark of a speech from a president who’s become increasingly frustrated, even angry, at the political stalemate over any effort to increase gun control and reduce the number of mass shootings.
But the poignant pause has inspired derision in some conservative corners, with many suggesting his tears were fake and all part of a bid to undermine the Second Amendment, the part of the U.S. Constitution that enshrines Americans’ right to bear arms.
“I would check that podium for like a raw onion or some no-more-tears. I mean, it’s not really believable,” Fox News contributor Andrea Tantaros said on air, to laughter. Online, the hashtag #teargate is full of Obama’s most eloquent critics saying he faked his tears to attack the second amendment or simply because he is a “p—-.”
John Nolte, a writer for the right-wing site Breibart, even compared Obama’s tears to Hitler’s use of pathos in propaganda.
Apparently, because the president moved to wipe away his tears, he must have rubbed Bengay, onions or another irritant on his eyes to make them water.
But all that was a step too far for Trump — the man who single-handedly kept the “birther” movement alive when he tried to force Obama to release a “long-form” birth certificate to prove he is a natural-born U.S. citizen.
“I actually think he was sincere. I’ll probably go down about five points in the polls for saying that,” Trump said Wednesday morning. He added he thinks the president “probably means well” though he’s taking “chunks and chunks out of the second amendment until we won’t have a second amendment anymore.”
This isn’t the first time Obama has been accused of employing crocodile tears to boost gun control. After several mass shootings, most notably Sandy Hook, he’s been accused of faking it to further his own political agenda.
But since Obama’s executive action simply requires more stringent background checks — a first in some situations in America — guns already in American hands remain safe, or as safe as firearms in a country with more than one mass shooting a day in 2015 can be.
via : National Post » Donald Trump
