Donald Trump refused in a CNBC interview to back down from a gun-rights remark he made this week, interpreted by some as a suggestion to use violence against Hillary Clinton.
"On the Second Amendment everybody came to my defense because there was nothing said wrong, I'm talking about the power of the voter," Trump told "Squawk Box" on Thursday in a phone interview. "Only the haters tried to grab on to that one."
Trump received torrents of criticism for his comments earlier this week on the potential of Clinton's making judicial appointments.
"If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks," Trump told a crowd in Wilmington, North Carolina on Tuesday. "Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is I don't know."
Clinton blasted Trump on Wednesday, telling a crowd in Iowa that Trump's "casual inciting of violence" showed he was unfit to be president.
"Words matter, my friends. If you are running to be president, words can have tremendous consequences," Clinton said at a rally in Des Moines. "Yesterday we witnessed the latest in a long line of casual comments from Donald Trump that crossed the line, ... his casual inciting of violence. Every single one of these incidents shows us that Donald Trump simply does not have the temperament to be president and commander-in-chief of the United States."