A sitting member of Congress declined on Tuesday to say whether he’d withdraw his endorsement of Donald Trump if a recording of Trump surfaced saying he liked to rape women.

Think about that for a second.

Okay.

Read on.

Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) was appearing on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes” to discuss a recording published Friday in which Trump, in 2005, spoke of women in lewd terms and said he grabbed them “by the pussy.”

Farenthold is a Trump supporter ― and stands by the nominee despite the controversy. As he tried to explain away Trump’s comments ― with the now-common refrain that it was “locker room talk” from more than a decade ago ― Hayes presented him a hypothetical.

“If a tape came out with Donald Trump saying that, saying, ‘I really like to rape women,’ you would continue to endorse him?”

“Again,” Farenthold replied, “that would be bad. And I would have to, I would consider it.”

In normal elections, one could consider Hayes’ question an absurd hypothetical, possibly unworthy of a response from a congressman. After the segment ended, Farenthold did take to Twitter to try and clarify his position.

I apologize for my failure to immediately condemn anyone who would say something as outrageous as they like raping women. (1/3) — Blake Farenthold (@farenthold) October 12, 2016

During an interview on MSNBC with Chris Hayes tonight, I was thrown off by the anchor’s use of a hypothetical question. (2/3) — Blake Farenthold (@farenthold) October 12, 2016

I do not, and have not ever condoned rape or violence against women. That is not the kind of man I believe Donald Trump to be. (3/3) — Blake Farenthold (@farenthold) October 12, 2016

But in this election, the Republican nominee is on tape talking about sexually assaulting women. And it seems perfectly acceptable to ask a question like Hayes did.

That Farenthold didn’t just say, “Of course I would take back my endorsement. I’m insulted you would even ask me that !” shows that he either had a brain fart (as he now claims) or that Trump has scared Republicans to the point that they simply won’t defy him. Maybe both.

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.