Trump Tells NRA He ‘Didn’t Need A Gun’ To Fend Off Mueller ‘Coup’

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President Trump’s speech before the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting took a dark turn on Friday when he joked that he “didn’t need a gun” to defend himself from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

“We are taking the power out of Washington, D.C. and returning it to the American people where it belongs, you see it now, better than ever with all the resignations of bad apples, they’re bad apples. They tried for a coup but it didn’t work out so well,” he said as the crowd cheered and jeered. “And I didn’t need a gun for that one, did I?”

Trump’s comments before a gun-friendly crowd marked an escalation in his daily attacks on Mueller’s probe since the redacted version of the report was released last week. During an interview with Sean Hannity on Thursday night, Trump referred to the investigation as an attempted “coup,” latching onto his son’s characterization of the probe.

Trump has long called for an investigation into how the Mueller probe started, calls that only swelled after his own attorney general told lawmakers that he believed “spying” on the Trump campaign occurred during the election.

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