Who's the joke?

Trump backtracks on Obama as ISIL founder: 'They don't get sarcasm?'

The Republican nominee also gloats about how 'poor, pathetic' pundits can't figure him out.

By Nolan D. McCaskill

Donald Trump on Friday backpedaled on his assertion that President Barack Obama founded the Islamic State, blasting the media for seriously reporting what he suggested was a sarcastic comment.

“Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) ‘the founder’ of ISIS, & MVP,” Trump tweeted Friday morning. “THEY DON'T GET SARCASM?”

Trump reveled in the uncertainty his tweet created, boasting nearly 90 minutes later of pundits’ inability to figure him out. “I love watching these poor, pathetic people (pundits) on television working so hard and so seriously to try and figure me out. They can't!” Trump declared.

He then appeared to finally expound on his comment, echoing the message his surrogates and adviser conveyed on the morning talk shows and blaming the media for being dishonest. “ISIS gained tremendous strength during Hillary Clinton's term as Secretary of State. When will the dishonest media report the facts!” he tweeted.

The Republican presidential nominee’s reversal and subsequent clarification comes after doubling down, if not tripling down, on his “founder” claim Thursday. It also comes ahead of what one person characterized as a “come-to-Jesus” meeting between Trump’s campaign and Republican Party officials in Orlando later Friday, as dozens of prominent members of the GOP press the Republican National Committee to dump Trump and redirect its funds down ballot to save Republican majorities in Congress.

Trump initially made the inflammatory comment during a Wednesday evening rally in Sunrise, Florida. “ISIS is honoring President Obama. He is the founder of ISIS,” Trump said. “He is the founder of ISIS, OK? He’s the founder. He founded ISIS. And I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton.”

But he didn’t stop there. The real estate mogul escalated his incendiary rhetoric multiple times on Thursday, including during a speech to the National Association of Home Builders in Miami.

“Our government isn’t giving us good protection. Our government has unleashed ISIS,” he said. “I call President Obama and Hillary Clinton the founders of ISIS. They’re the founders. In fact, I think we’ll give Hillary Clinton the — you know, if you’re on a sports team, most valuable player, MVP, you get the MVP award — ISIS will hand her the most valuable player award. Her only competition is Barack Obama.”

Trump’s “founder” comment is just the latest in a series of seemingly never-ending controversies that have erupted since he officially claimed the GOP nomination in Cleveland last month. The list includes a verbal battle with a Gold Star family and more recently a provocative remark about “Second Amendment people” stopping Hillary Clinton from appointing liberal Supreme Court Justices.

His comments in Miami followed telephone interviews with CNBC and conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday morning. Trump told “Squawk Box” that Obama and Clinton deserve the Islamic State’s most valuable player award and slammed shut the opening Hewitt gave him to clarify his remarks.

“I know what you meant. You meant that he created the vacuum. He lost the peace,” Hewitt told Trump, to which Trump responded: “No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a top Trump surrogate, expressed frustration with Trump’s “imprecise language” and “shorthand” speaking style.

“He sometimes uses three words when he needs 10,” Gingrich told Fox News, adding that had Trump, for example, explained that Obama and Clinton’s decision to pull out of Iraq created the vacuum that allowed the emergence of the Islamic State, he’d be “100 percent accurate.”

“When you instead comprise them into ‘Obama created ISIS’ — I know what Trump has in his mind, but that’s not what people hear,” he said. “He has got to learn to use language that has been thought through and that is clear to everybody and to stick to that language because otherwise the mainstream media is gonna take every possible excuse to pile on him.”

Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, a Clinton supporter and Iraq War veteran, on Friday cast Trump as a clueless candidate with a hazardous temperament.

“I mean, what happens when he presses the nuclear button and then the next day says, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I was just being sarcastic’? It’s ridiculous that we’re even talking about someone like this being our commander in chief, and it’s dangerous for our troops,” he told CNN’s “New Day” on Friday.

But Trump’s camp came to his defense. Senior adviser Sarah Huckabee Sanders pointed to the term “founder” as the “point of sarcasm” but maintained that the formation of the Islamic State is a result of Obama and Clinton’s failed policies.

“And that can't be disputed. ISIS didn’t exist before the Obama presidency,” she said on CNN.

She also insisted that Trump’s intention was to bring the conversation to the fore of the campaign — and he did.

“I think the point that he’s trying to make is the contrast that exists, and he’s trying to bring out a really important issue and make everybody talk about it, and that's exactly what we're doing right now,” she said. “I bet that you guys will spend all day talking about whether or not Obama played a role in the formation of ISIS.”

Trump special counsel Michael Cohen repeatedly declined to try to explain Trump’s rhetoric in a separate CNN interview, insisting to Chris Cuomo that Trump is the best person to clarify his remarks. But he also said Trump should be taken at his word “for everything” and eventually offered an explanation for his boss.

“Mr. Trump is claiming that, you know, President Obama and Secretary Clinton are the founders of ISIS. What he's referring to, and he’s talked about it so many times, is of course the fact that ISIS grew and grew out of control and is now a threat to our national security,” Cohen said.