Chicago Sun-Times

Walsh sorry for saying children should be armed on Cohen show

- Sun-Times staff report

Former Illinois congressma­n Joe Walsh is apologizin­g after he says he was “tricked” into saying 4-year-olds should be armed on Sasha Baron Cohen’s new show, “Who is America?”

Walsh was featured in a satirical program aimed at kindergart­ners, teaching them how to operate a gun.

“The intensive three-week course introduces specially selected children between the ages of four and 12 to pistols, rifles, semi-automatics and a rudimentar­y knowledge of murders. In less than a month, a first-grader can become a first-grenader. The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good kid with a gun. Happy shooting, kids,” Walsh said in the fake commercial, according to a report by The Daily Mail.

The clip was played on Piers Morgan’s show, “Good Morning Britain.” What followed was a heated exchange between Morgan and Walsh.

Walsh said he was tricked into saying what he did. He said after a long interview about Israel, the interviewe­r told Walsh to read from a teleprompt­er. Walsh believed what he was reading was a program that Israel had in which they trained young kids to use firearms, though Israel has no such program. “I didn’t realize I was reading lies about kids & guns until it was too late,” he wrote in a Wednesday tweet.

“I screwed up. If you can’t understand that humans screw up sometimes, so be it,” he said.

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Joe Walsh

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