After Donald Trump stepped in it big time over his claim that women who have abortions should be punished, and then reversed, Fox & Friends were there to make excuses for what may be the most serious misstep of Trump’s candidacy.

From The Guardian:

It was an extraordinary gaffe even by the Republican frontrunner’s standards and, unusually, one he scrambled to retract almost at once. But the damage was done, leading the GOP establishment to suggest that Trump had finally been unmasked as a conservative impostor.

Democrats seized on the remarks as evidence that the brash billionaire was waging “a war on women” that could deliver a landslide to Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.

…Trump blundered into it on Wednesday when, with little evidence of forethought, he said in a TV interview that abortion ought to be illegal and women who underwent such an illegal procedure should face “some sort of punishment”.

In that moment he could claim the possibly unique distinction of uniting anti-abortion and pro-choice groups in joint condemnation. Even Trump, who has constantly derided “political correctness”, realised he had gone too far. He hastily issued statements to clarify his position, saying only those who performed abortions would be “held legally responsible, not the woman”.

The utterances made headlines on front pages across America and dominated TV news networks. Trump was criticised as rash, undisciplined and prone to making up policy on the hoof. 

Naturally, Fox & Friends did their best the next morning to help clean up Trump’s mess for him. “He only became a politician about six or seven months ago,” cohost Steve Doocy said indulgently.

“Yeah, which is why people like him,” cohost Ainsley Earhardt chirped in agreement.

But The Young Turks’ John Iadarola had a great smackdown. It was not a detailed policy question such as the pros and cons of a tariff, he pointed out, but a simple matter that is a major tenet of conservatism. Furthermore, Iadarola added, Trump is “new enough that he doesn’t know how long you should go to jail but he’s been around long enough to know that we should change established, Constitutional law for the past four or five decades.”

Or maybe not. NBC News reports that in a Face The Nation interview that will air on Sunday, Trump changed his position yet again. "The laws are set now on abortion and that's the way they're going to remain until they're changed,” he now says. NBC also noted, "Hours after the excerpt of the new interview was released, Trump campaign spokesperson Hope Hicks denied that Trump's comments amounted to a reversal."

Watch Fox News’ Republican Rehab below, from the March 31 Fox & Friends, via Media Matters. Underneath that, watch The Young Turks eviscerate Trump’s right-wing defenders.