Trump begins quest for Sorcerer's Stone in order to resurrect Joe Paterno pic.twitter.com/kSXw6wMVH6
— Ian McKenna (@Ian_McK_) April 13, 2016
Donald Trump was either trying to say something that didn't come out quite right or was very misinformed when he asked a crowd in Pittsburgh "How's Joe Paterno?" Paterno, of course, died in 2012. Trump has tweeted about Paterno before and claims to have known him personally, making the comment on Wednesday even more odd.
Received a beautiful letter from Joe Paterno's son, Jay. He really loved and respected his father.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 9, 2012
According to Trump's representatives, he was referring to the Joe Paterno statue that was removed in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
Trump spox confirms to me that his Joe Paterno reference was to "bring back" his statue at Penn State
— David Martosko (@dmartosko) April 14, 2016
Whatever miscommunication there was, it all started as Trump tried to connect with his audience by using sports. That seems fairly harmless, considering that most politicians use this technique all the time. The only problem was he was way off on his audience. Even if he had better articulated his thoughts on the Paterno statue -- assuming that's what he was trying to do -- he said it to the wrong crowd. A Pittsburgh-area crowd would be much more likely to be Pittsburgh fans than it would Penn State.
Trump's interesting comment on Paterno: "I know a lot about Pennsylvania, & it’s great. How’s Joe Paterno? Are we going to bring that back?"
— Ashley Killough (@KilloughCNN) April 13, 2016
Maybe Donald Trump doesn't know that much about Pennsylvania.