The Rotating 'Clean Up' Crew Called on by Trump

The latest uproar over comments made by Donald Trump was followed by a familiar face: A surrogate explaining what the GOP presidential nominee meant.

This morning it came in the form of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who told ABC News' "Good Morning America" that Trump's comments about Second Amendment supporters stopping Hillary Clinton from picking Supreme Court justices was not a suggestion of violence against her.

"We know Donald Trump is not particularly indirect," Giuliani told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. "If Donald Trump was going to say something like that, he'd say something like that."

Giuliani is far from the only one on the Trump train who's been called on to explain what the candidate meant at times during the 2016 campaign.

Trump's son Eric Trump has also been called in to explain what his father meant after the Republican presidential candidate said that his daughter Ivanka "would find another career or find another company" if she was sexually harassed at work. He ended up making comments that continued the conversation over sexual harassment by implying that his sister "wouldn't allow herself to be" harassed.

"Throughout this campaign, the Trump effort has had a loose confederation of C-list spokespeople who have been deployed on TV and radio to try and explain Trump's daily messaging points," said Ryan Williams, a longtime Republican strategist who worked on both of Gov. Mitt Romney's presidential campaigns.

"Many times, they have failed to deliver the points and even made their own controversial statements that have caused addition blunders for the campaign to address," Williams said. "Many of Mr. Trump's statements are completely unexplainable and he makes it even harder for his surrogates to defend him because he refuses to apologizes for what he says."

"I would love to support the nominee ... but Trump is making it very difficult to do that," Williams said, adding that, however, he will not vote for Hillary Clinton.

Williams was the director of television and radio for Romney's 2008 presidential campaign, which meant that he was in charge of booking surrogates and making sure that they were informed of the campaign's talking points.

"Usually there is very tightly-scripted messaging ... to make sure everyone is singing from the same song sheet," Williams said, noting that he thinks no such preparations appear to be taking place for the Trump surrogates, and, as a result, they have been "incredibly ineffective."

"None of that is happening in this operation. It's just the Wild West," he said.

One of the most frequent faces who helps to clean up after Trump makes a controversial comment is Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, but Williams said that comes with the territory.

"His job is essentially to mop up after every Trump disaster that comes down the pike," Williams said.

Since being selected as Trump's running mate, there have been several instances where Pence has stepped in after Trump made a statement and tried to smooth out the tensions that followed.

One example came when Trump -- reportedly jokingly -- said that it would be helpful if Russian hackers found Hillary Clinton's deleted emails. Shortly after, Pence deflected the dialogue onto the findings from the Democratic National Committee's email hack.

Pence's deflection was also seen when Trump attacked the parents of a fallen Muslim soldier who spoke against him at the Democratic National Convention.

When Trump said that he wasn't "there yet" to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan in his primary re-election campaign, Pence publicly endorsed Ryan, reportedly with Trump's blessing.

"The Trump surrogates are being asked to do the impossible, which is to explain Donald Trump's near-daily outbursts," Williams said.

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