‘Of course I’m being sarcastic’: MSM misses Trump’s joke on Russia & Hillary emails

Mainstream media can apparently no longer tell the difference between when Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is being bombastic and when he’s joking. Telling the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton and the State Department was the latter, he says.

On Wednesday, news outlets across the country freaked out when Trump weighed in on the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) leaked emails and Clinton’s use of a private email server when serving as secretary of state. The comments were made during a speech at Trump National Doral, in Doral, Florida.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said, referring to emails deleted from Clinton’s private email server. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

The comments stem from accusations that Russia hacked into the DNC’s computer servers and leaked emails to WikiLeaks in order to help Trump’s campaign.

Mainstream media treated the remarks as another one of Trump’s “crazy” and “dangerous” ideas, one that bordered on “treason” for advocating foreign espionage and intervention into the presidential campaign.

Later in the day, the uproar still deafening, Trump explained his joke.

"Of course I'm being sarcastic," he told Fox News. "You have 33,000 emails deleted, and the real problem is what was said on the emails from the Democratic National Convention."

Trump surrogates toed the campaign line.

"He was joking around," former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told CNN Thursday morning. "If he tells you I'm joking, you take him at his word."

Before Trump qualified his remarks, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia), another surrogate for the real estate mogul, called the comments a “joke.”