Trump spokesperson reverses, says ex-president didn’t buy Glock at South Carolina gun store

A campaign spokesperson for Donald Trump clarified Monday that the ex-president did not purchase a Glock firearm during a visit to a gun store in South Carolina, after initially tweeting that he had.

Trump’s visit to the store came ahead of remarks he was set to deliver in Summerville, S.C., on Monday afternoon. Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung initially wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that the former president had purchased a Glock firearm.

Cheung also posted a video of Trump at the firearm store. In it, the former president points to a firearm and says, “I want to buy one.” Cheung’s video and a separate post by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) showed Trump posing with the gun.

Among those with Trump at the store included Greene and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R), whose endorsement, along with 12 others, were touted by the Trump campaign earlier Monday. 

But CNN reporter Alayna Treene later said the news outlet had confirmed Trump hadn’t bought the firearm. Cheung’s post on X has since been deleted.

“Trump spokesman Steven Cheung clarifies to CNN that Trump did not actually purchase a gun while visiting the armory in South Carolina,” Treene wrote on X.

It is a federal crime to receive a firearm while under felony indictment or to sell a firearm to someone under felony indictment. 

Trump currently faces 91 counts across four criminal indictments. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

But the laws are among a series of provisions that have come under constitutional challenges in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark expansion of gun rights last summer.

Among those challenges are a Supreme Court case this fall about a gun possession ban for people under domestic-violence restraining orders. Hunter Biden, the president’s son, has raised constitutional questions about being charged for possessing a gun while being an unlawful drug user.

Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, immediately hit back at Trump’s visit to the state and released an ad targeting the former president over his position on the Second Amendment and gun rights.

“Trump promised NRA members he’d have their back. But when Second Amendment rights came under attack, Trump abandoned us and stood with liberal Democrats,” a narrator says in the ad from Never Back Down.

Trump’s visit to the state comes as the former president looks to shore up support as the front-runner in the 2024 GOP primary. His rivals, including DeSantis, have struggled to narrow the gap in polling against Trump.

In South Carolina, the former president has enjoyed the support from prominent Republicans in the state, including Gov. Henry McMaster, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Sen. Lindsey Graham and three House Republicans, among others.

That support is notable, given that two South Carolinians — former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott — are also running for the GOP presidential nomination but do not enjoy the kind of support from statewide elected officials in South Carolina that Trump has been able to galvanize. 

Polling, too, shows the prominent South Carolinians trailing Trump in the state. A Monmouth University-Washington Post poll released earlier this month found Trump receiving 46 percent of likely Republican primary voters in the Palmetto State, while Haley received 18 percent and Scott received 10 percent. 

Updated at 3:42 p.m. ET

Zach Schonfeld contributed.