Criticism of Donald Trump for using a graphic of a star of David alongside a pile of cash in an anti-Hillary Clinton tweet is "political correctness run amok," fired Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said Sunday.
In an interview on CNN's
"State of the Union," Lewandowski, hired as a CNN contributor after
he was axed from the Trump campaign, blasted the backlash that followed Trump's Saturday tweet charging Clinton as the "most corrupt candidate ever"
alongside a six-pointed star; it was quickly deleted.
Two hours after the initial post, Trump tweeted a different version of the same image, this time with a circle under the words "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!" instead of the star.
"A tweet is a simple tweet," he said. "The bottom line is you can read into things that are not there," adding the star — a symbol that appears on the Israeli flag and is commonly associated with Judaism — is "the same star that sheriff's departments use to representation law enforcement."
"To read into something that isn't there is — that's the mainstream media trying to attack Donald Trump for something that really isn't there," he charged. "They put a new tweet up with a circle. The message is the same. Look at the message. The message is that Hillary Clinton is corrupt. "
"The bottom line is, this is political correctness run amok," he added. "If it would have been a star next to Hillary Clinton without the cash behind it, no one would be questioning this. This is the mainstream media trying to read into something."
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