In March, Donald Trump said that women who have abortions should be “punished." He quickly backtracked on the comment, but pro-lifers were incredibly frustrated and angered because his callous remark flew in the face of decades of carefully crafted messaging about how ending abortion is really about healing rather than "punishment." That's especially the case when pro-choice politicians openly describe children as a problem, not a blessing. President Obama has even gone so far as to justify his belief in legal abortion by saying he didn't want his daughter " punished with a baby."

Well, on Wednesday Trump was asked on MSNBC's Morning Joe—which is one of the most openly pro-Trump forums in the media—about his abortion comments in March. Here is Trump's response, though describing it as a "response" is generous:

WILLIE GEIST: What about what you told Chris Matthews a few weeks ago, which is that women who get abortions should be punished? Do you still believe that to be true? TRUMP: No, he was asking me a theoretical, or just a question in theory, and I talked about it only from that standpoint. Of course not. And that was done, he said, you know, I guess it was theoretically, but he was asking a rhetorical question, and I gave an answer. And by the way, people thought from an academic standpoint, and, asked rhetorically, people said that answer was an unbelievable academic answer! But of course not, and I said that afterwards.

It's now been over a month since Trump first made this abortion gaffe. Since then, did anyone in his campaign at any point say, "You screwed up badly, Donald. Don't do that again—it's insulting to a lot of voters you need to win over. If you're asked about abortion again, here's what you need to say." It sure doesn't seem like it. And if Trump did work on abortion talking points, and this is the best that he can do, that's even worse.

But now he's now the presumptive GOP nominee, and he says he's going to unite the party. Throughout the primary season exit polling has consistently shown that seriously religious voters—as opposed to the fuzzily defined "evangelicals"—have been perhaps the people most hardened to him. This probably has something to do with the fact that Trump is entirely unconvincing on social issues. Trump was pro-choice not that long ago, has said he would keep funding Planned Parenthood with federal tax dollars, and during the campaign he's said that his sister, a federal judge who's a " pro-abortion extremist," would be a good choice for the Supreme Court.

A nontrivial number of Republicans are single-issue voters on abortion, and you'd think Trump would at least make an effort to not appear this disingenuous. Even if he's not sincere personally, at least communicating that he respects the deeply felt opposition to abortion of many GOP voters might be all it takes to convince pro-lifers to vote for him, because Hillary Clinton's even worse on the issue.

But once again, we see a particularly humiliating example of Trump either not trying or failing to learn anything as the campaign goes on.