Donald Trump Takes a Day to Get Up to Speed on Kim Davis

It took a day for the leading Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump, to get caught up on the Kim Davis story -- which he now sums up as "a very, very sticky situation."

While many of the other Republicans running for president quickly voiced outrage over the Rowan County, Ky., clerk being locked up for contempt, Trump skipped a direct question during a news conference Thursday, saying he wasn't up to speed with what was happening in the news.

During an interview on Morning Joe this morning, Trump said Davis ought to have let others in the office issue licenses to same-sex couples, or the couples should have traveled to offices 30 miles away.

"I would say the simple answer is let her clerks do it," he said. "Now, from what I understand she's not letting the clerks do it either. The other simple answer is rather than going through this -- because it's really a very, very sticky situation and terrible situation -- 30 miles away they have other places, they have many other places where you get licensed. And you have them actually quite nearby, that's another alternative."

With Davis still in jail for contempt over her refusal to issue marriage licenses, others in her office did begin issuing the documents today in Rowan County, after pledging \ they would do so under oath in a federal courtroom Thursday.

Other candidates didn't need a day to be fully briefed on what was happening in Kentucky. Socially conservative Republicans like Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee immediately released outraged statements on Thursday when a federal judge ordered Davis to jail. During an interview on Morning Joe Thursday, Huckabee seemed to call on other clerks to follow Davis's lead and "stand up."

Trump doesn't agree. Although Trump opposes marriage equality, he said Americans must abide by the Supreme Court's ruling, issued in June, which legalizes same-sex marriage nationwide.

"You have to go with it," he said today. "The decision's been made, and that is the law of the land."

This isn't the first time the billionaire candidate has been caught unprepared when asked a question by a reporter. He mistook the Quds Forces with the Kurdish people, for example, during questions about foreign policy on conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt's program as recently as Thursday.

Trump called it a "gotcha" question, promising he'd eventually be "so good at the military your head will spin."