NEW YORK, Aug. 10 (UPI) — The New York Daily News called for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to end his campaign after comments he made Tuesday that some interpreted as a violent threat against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
The paper posted an online op-ed Tuesday night and Wednesday’s front-page headline read: “This isn’t a joke any more.”
The unusual step taken by one of Trump’s hometown newspapers comes a day after another hometown newspaper, the New York Times, printed a letter signed by 50 senior advisors to Republican presidents dating back to Richard Nixon declaring the GOP nominee as “reckless” and “dangerous.”
“Donald Trump must end his campaign for the White House in a reckoning with his own madness, while praying that nothing comes of his musing about an assassination of Hillary Clinton,” the op-ed read.
Earlier in the day, Trump set off his latest controversy with remarks at a rally in North Carolina, telling the crowd, “Hillary wants to abolish — essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
The op-ed said the Republican party must abandon Trump if he does not leave the race.
“Trump can offer no apology sufficient to make up for insidiously making light of murder. Nor can he explain away or justify planting a notion that could spur a demented follower to kill a political rival, a President or Supreme Court justices,” the piece continued.
The Trump campaign defended the nominee’s comments telling reporters he was referring to gun-rights advocates power at the ballot box. The campaign didn’t comment on the editorial.
