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Every day, it seems that Donald J. Trump must soon run out of ways to counteract negative perceptions of his campaign. And yet, he has continued to find new ones, as he did on Wednesday.

In a town-hall-style forum with Chris Matthews of MSNBC, Mr. Trump, a late-in-life convert to an anti-abortion view, said that he believed, should a ban be put in place on the procedure, that women who get one should face a “punishment” of as-yet-undetermined length. The uproar was swift and extensive, as Democrats condemned the remarks as dangerous, and anti-abortion campaigners said that Mr. Trump had misstated their goals.

Mr. Trump, who almost never admits an error, did not quite do so in this case, although he reversed course with a statement that offered a new position: He said abortion practitioners would be the ones to face a penalty, not the women receiving the abortions. He also insisted his position had not changed.

The episode created fresh fodder for his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, who has been looking for ways to criticize Mr. Trump on policy without having the fight devolve into personal attacks. It also created a line of attack for his Republican opponents, who are hoping to slow him in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday. And it raised new questions about Mr. Trump’s readiness for prime time as he leads the pack for the Republican nomination.

Before the abortion dispute, Mr. Trump had been addressing questions in another potentially damaging episode, spending 24 hours defending his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who has been charged with battery for grabbing a former reporter for the conservative website Breitbart News. Despite a videotape showing that Mr. Lewandowski had grabbed the reporter, Michelle Fields, Mr. Trump insisted that the tape showed nothing and rejected questions about why his campaign manager was putting his hands on people.

Mr. Trump will now take two days off the campaign trail, before a final push in Wisconsin. It will be days before it becomes clear whether this week has caused him too much damage to fix.