Mark Halperin did a decent job of explaining why Trump's comments about second amendment supporters taking matters into their own hands after Clinton gets elected (ie, assassinate her) were wrong...until he tried to explain them away with a clip of Joe Biden. Here's what he said about Trump:

"He loves to be a showman, he loves to joke. This was a joke that was not appropriate. If the campaign wants to get people to believe that this was about rallying people who support the second amendment, they are welcome to try. The best you can say about their statement is they should know that that is not how most people interpret it. That clip is gonna be shown hundreds of times over the next 24 hours and they are not going to apologize and they are not backing down.

They better understand, at a minimum...it is out of bounds to discuss it and once again he is playing into the main critique that he doesn't have the temperament to be President."

Then they started discussing the RNC, how Trump's fear mongering isn't working. His idea of instilling fear into the American people is losing it's effect.

Halperin said: "You cannot joke about assassination for someone who is under Secret Service protection. He should you can't make flip comments about it."

Sounds logical, right?

Until, he flips it. He says "Now, we should say that he is not the first person to make jokes about guns....here's Joe Biden, from September 2008"

(clip)

Biden: "I guarantee Barack Obama ain't taking my shotguns, so don't buy that malarkey...I've got two. If he tries to pull my Beretta , he's gonna have a problem"

(end clip)

Halperin then tries to equate these two comments as being somehow equal. Except, they aren't. One is a candidate making a joke about his running mate. The other is a call to his sycophants to assassinate a candidate if she wins the election.

Sorry, Mark. Not even close to the same.

He should have followed his own advice, offered just a couple of hours before he did his show:

Social media & cable commentators tempted to justify what Trump said or deflect to another topic should think twice. And think again.

— Mark Halperin (@MarkHalperin) August 9, 2016