If he meant “nose”, he could have just said it. He wouldn’t have caught himself, paused, and changed to “whatever”, now would he? 
I still think it’s much more likely, as someone posited upthread, to be just a garbled attempt at a cliche that they struggled to explain away because it was so garbled.
ETA: Actually, I think that was another thread. I’m getting as confused as Trump.
Nobody reasonable would suggest that a journalist had blood coming out of her. Unless she was actually bleeding. So that might be Trump’s best defense: nobody knows what the fuck he was talking about anyway.
If he meant nose, why did he say “whatever”? I’ve never heard anyone say, “she was so angry, blood was shooting of her nose”. That doesn’t make any sense. “Blood coming out of her eyes” makes some sense since anger can make people’s eyes red, thus the blood reference. Vagina also makes sense in this context, since Trump would be implying that Kelly was acting like she was suffering from PMS. So to come back later and say he meant nose seems like a bit of ass-covering political spin.
I think he mixed up “She was seeing red” and “She had steam coming out of her ears” and similar idioms and turned it into “She had blood coming out of her eyes.”
As someone who cannot stop herself from saying “That threw a monkey in the wrench!” I feel some sympathy when someone screws up an idiom.
Called on it, he stumbled around instead of just saying “I screwed up the idiom.” Trump doesn’t admit mistakes; he doubles down. So he doubled down.
That actually makes sense. I would have respected Trump if he came out and said he flubbed up the idiom. But instead he tries to spin it (which he criticizes other politicians when they do it).
This. I won’t say it’s Trump’s entire following, but a lot of it consists of people who don’t feel that there’s anything wrong with their racism or sexism, and are going ‘all in’ with the guy who agrees with them.
(And hasn’t the debate over ‘whatever’ been beaten into the ground by now? Sheesh.)
Whatever.
The idiom Trump was obviously trying to use is “she had blood in her eye.” It’s not a great leap of imagination to think that he got as far as halfway through his next sentence before realizing he had irretrievably fucked it up, and had nowhere to go from there. That Trump is a poor off-the-cuff speaker, I think, is uncontroversial. That he then dismissed the entire subject with a graceless “whatever” is just more of the same.
The follow-up is what truly shows Trump’s character. At any point - as soon as it happened, or later when questioned - he could have just said “I meant ‘she had blood in her eye,’ obviously,” and that would have ended it.
But Trump doesn’t have it in him. He can’t admit he was wrong, he can’t think ahead to where his words will take him, and he can’t take other people’s feelings and opinions seriously enough to imagine why he should do either of those things.
It’s perfectly logical to hear “she’s got blood coming out of her whatever” and think “menstruation.” Normally, that would be the only likely meaning. But that’s clearly not where Trump’s mind was at that moment. While I’m generally in favor of twisting whatever a front-running Republican says to put him in the worst possible light - preferably while destroying his campaign and the entire GOP platform in the process - I generally prefer that the guys on my side not be so obviously wrong while doing so. It’s unprofessional, like a safe-cracker leaving fingerprints.
I think this is correct. Trump was searching for a witticism and failed because he’s a half-wit.
This goes to show that despite Trump’s best efforts, personality and sincerity, sometimes purely by accident he manages to say something that’s not offensive.
Don’t forget “she was out for blood”, but otherwise I think you’ve hit the nail outta the park.
That, and there’s one other thing that hasn’t gotten much attention. Did Megyn Kelly look mad to anyone? I didn’t see blood coming out of her eyes, or anywhere else. She was a debate moderator doing her job, asking a question. Trump may not have liked the question, but that’s a far cry from the anger that he accused her of.
So Trump can’t admit when he’s wrong, but it’s also his nature to instantly come out on the attack. It’s brilliant in its way. He gets to shift the narrative away from the content of the debate, he looks aggressive and no-nonsense, and he also gets to cast himself as the victim. You have to be paying attention to notice how divorced it is from reality.
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Did you have a better view of the moderators than Trump, or any of the other candidates, did?
FYI - No one actually saw actual blood coming out of the moderators eyes, ears, or nose.
+2
I think this was pretty clear to everyone, including those who tried to twist his comments into something they weren’t. That’s why his popularity actually went up after the comments. Not because of the comments, but because of the dishonest tactics of his critics.
I would wager that if you showed 100 women a transcript of his comments, at least 75 would say that he was referring to menstruation.
Yes, not that it’s relevant. Fox showed the moderators in a faily close-up shot as they asked questions, and the candidates were 20-30 feet away.
Where those answers based on the actual questions they were being asked by the media outlets or did they have actual knowledge of the Trump radio interview made days after the GOP candidates debate?
“OOH! OOH! Mr Candidate. Ms Candidate. While we’re ignoring your positions on the issues, what is your opinion of Trump discussing a moderators menstrual cycle?”
The media outlets are driving the questioning to illicit the proper/expected/required responses from the candidates. The underdog candidates have a choice. They can refuse to discuss the carnival side show issues involving Trump and risk being edited out of the latest news cycle, or they can discuss Trump when the media repeatedly harps on the latest Trump non-statement.
Did you know that Trump reported for jury duty today? You would if you happened to watch MSNBC, CNN, and FOX this morning. Jury duty? Really? Is this actually news, or just an act of desperation by the media outlets to provide an All-Trump-All-The-Time news feed?
What are you waiting for?
Ya’ll must have sucked at Match Game.