Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry answered a charge from Donald Trump that he would soon be dropping out of the race by saying, “a broken clock is right once a day.”
While that sounds something like a confirmation of Trump’s claim, Perry used to idiom to apparently indicate that he was in fact not leaving the race, and to criticize Trump.
The phrase is generally “even a broken clock is right twice a day,” but perhaps the former Air Force officer was thinking of military time.
“Perry attacked me, now he’s getting out of the race. He was at 4 or 5 percent, now he’s getting out of the race,” Trump said at his loyalty oath press conference today.
Perry’s poor fundraising has caused him to cease paying certain staff in recent weeks, leading some commentators, including Trump, to speculate that he would be first major declared candidate to drop out of the race.
