Trump spokeswoman backtracks on claim Afghanistan was Obama's war

Donald Trump’s campaign spokeswoman says it was technical glitches, not a poor grasp of recent U.S. history, that led her to blame President Barack Obama for events that occurred during the administration of his predecessor.

Katrina Pierson, who as Trump’s spokeswoman makes regular TV appearances, told the Texas Tribune that malfunctions with her earpiece during an interview last weekend on CNN led her to jumble her words when she said President Barack Obama was responsible for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, which actually occurred in 2001 under President George W. Bush. The mix-up occurred, Pierson said, because she could hear her own voice echoing in her earpiece.


“I obviously meant to say Syria and not Afghanistan,” Pierson told the Tribune, explaining further that she was referring to the U.S. effort to back certain Syrian rebel groups, not a full-scale war.

Pierson offered a similar explanation for another recent on-air mistake — her statement that Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were responsible for the death of Capt. Humayun Khan, whose parents delivered an impassioned rebuke of Trump at the Democratic National Convention. Khan was killed in 2004, during the Bush administration, a fact Pierson said she forgot as a TV producer was speaking into her earpiece, urging her to wrap up ahead of a commercial break.

The Trump spokeswoman also defended a September 2012 post to her Twitter account in which she questioned if 9/11 was “an inside job.” Pierson said that tweet was a reference to the attack against a U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which occurred two days before her post to Twitter, and not the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

She told the Tribune that she misspoke only “.03” percent of the time and pointed to mistakes by Obama and Vice President Joe Biden as evidence that all public speakers make mistakes.