Donald Trump vows to "unsign" Obama gun measures
BILOXI, Miss. -- GOP front-runner Donald Trump vowed to first veto and then "unsign" President Barack Obama's possible executive action on guns at a rally in Biloxi, Mississippi on Saturday. There is just one problem: the President hasn't finalized what the series of gun measures will be, but Trump assured the crowd that he would get rid of them anyway.
"There's an assault on the Second Amendment," Trump said. "You know, Obama's going to do an executive order on the Second Amendment, really knock the hell out of it. You know that?.... I will veto that, I will unsign that so fast, so fast."
The crowd of more than 10,000 roared appreciatively during Trump's first visit to Mississippi as a presidential candidate. The rally was, in many ways, a return to an older form of Trump's stump speech. There were no references to former President Bill Clinton's "abuse of women" or any shots at fellow presidential candidate Texas Sen. Ted Cruz being an evangelical from Cuba.
There was also no mention of a newly released video from Somalia's al Qaeda affiliate, al-Shabab, which shows Trump's December speech in which he called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." This would seemingly belatedly confirm former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's claims that terrorist groups were using Trump to recruit -- although at the last Democratic debate, Clinton specifically mentioned ISIS -- and at the time, there was no such video.
Trump did address the video in an interview airing on "Face The Nation" on Sunday.
"Look, there's a problem," Trump told anchor John Dickerson. "I bring it up, other people have called me and say, you have guts to bring it up because frankly, it's true but nobody wants to get involved. Now people are getting involved."
Trump supporters at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum didn't seem to care or did not believe such a video exists.
"Who knows if that's even true?" said 29-year-old Phil Krohn, an environmental supervisor at a solar panel factory in nearby Ocean Springs. "They're going to do whatever they're going to do. I don't even know if that's even true."
"It doesn't bother me at all. They would love Hillary to be in there because I don't think that ISIS thinks Hillary is a threat to them," said 59-year-old Debbie Burkhalter, referring to the Democratic front-runner. "I think Donald Trump is. When somebody is a threat to you, you're going to start things like that to get around it."
Trump weighed in on protests at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Iran Saturday after Saudi Arabia executed a Shiite cleric. In typical Trump-ian fashion, he started off in one subject area and verbally wandered somewhere else.
"Remember this, I'm pretty good at signals and I see a lot of things happening," Trump said. "One thing I see out there, just happened today, in Tehran, they're burning down the Saudi embassy, you see that? Now, what that is -- is Iran wants to take over Saudi Arabia, they always have. They want the oil, okay, they've always wanted that.
"You watch, I predicted a lot of things, you have to say, including, get the oil, take the oil, keep the oil. Right?" Trump continued. "I've been saying that for three years, and everyone said, 'Oh, I can't do that, this is a sovereign country.' There is no country, they have a bunch of dishonest people, they've created ISIS, Hillary Clinton created ISIS with Obama. But I love predicting, because ultimately you need someone with vision."
The rest of the rally featured lengthy castigations of the Iran nuclear deal and little mention of fellow Republican candidates, save for Jeb Bush. Trump, looking ahead to the general election, acknowledged that Republicans may face an uphill electoral battle against Democrats and tried to paint himself as the one most unique qualified to take the White House.
"Don't forget, it's very important, there are some structural advantages," Trump said. "The Democrats have certain structural advantages in terms of getting elected. And you know, you look at the different states, and there are some certain advantages that they have. You have to pick the right guy."
For this crowd, Trump was certainly "the right guy." There were no protesters and audience members were piling in even as Trump was well into his speech.
"I support him wholeheartedly," said 39-year-old Tabitha Simmons, a wife and mother studying for a degree in social work. "He is what America needs. He is going to make changes. He is going to make America great again. I have children and they need to see that and need to live that."