Over the weekend several top officials in President Donald Trump's administration argued that it was unacceptable to bring a gun to a protest. When press secretary Karoline Leavitt was corned on it during Monday's press breifing, however, she stumbled in her answer.
The reporter who asked the question cited the Fox News interview with FBI Director Kash Patel, who said, “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It's that simple. You don't have that right to break the law and incite violence."
He wasn't the only administration official.
Top U.S. Customs and Border Protection official Greg Bovino told CNN that the second person shot and killed by a federal agent in Minneapolis had "intent to harm or delay or obstruct that federal officer with a weapon."
"He had a gun legally," corrected CNN host Dana Bash. "It just it's it's sort of feels like we're in the upside-down where we have law enforcement and conservatives who are very pro-Second Amendment saying the problem was that he had a gun legally."
Real Clear Politics reporter Philip Wegmann asked Leavitt: "Does the president believe the Second Amendment rights remain in effect even when protesting?"
Leavitt dodged in her answer, instead saying he supports the Second Amendment and, in fact, has been the strongest defender of it.
"Uh, so while Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms, Americans do not have a constitutional right to impede lawful immigration enforcement operations. Uh, and any gun owner knows that when you, uh, are carrying a weapon, when you are bearing arms and you are confronted by law enforcement, uh, you are, uh, raising the assumption of risk. And the, the risk of, of force being used against you. And, and that's unfortunately what took place on Saturday" she said.
Josh Wingrove, White House correspondent for Bloomberg, noted the comment from Leavitt in a social media post.
He also commented on X, "Leavitt has repeatedly said it's illegal to 'impede lawful immigration enforcement operations,' without fully specifying whether or not she's accusing Pretti of that. She has more generally accused Democratic leaders in the state of stoking resistance to those operations."
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