Donald Trump at Odds With New Campaign Chief’s Comments
Trump and his new campaign chief are saying different things.
— HAGERSTOWN, MD -- As Donald Trump spoke in a crowded hangar on the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania, he sounded like the Trump we've heard for months.
"I think I look real good. I mean, I think I look like a president. You mean, you mean, [Ohio Gov. John] Kasich looks better than Trump? I think a lot of people would disagree with that," he joked.
At his rallies, he employs the same rhetoric that everyone is used to from the Republican frontrunner: "Lyin Ted" and "Crooked Hillary" litter his remarks as cries of "Build that wall!" ring out.
If one were to take it from his new convention manager, Paul Manafort, however, it might seem as though a new Trump were approaching.
"You'll start to see more depth of the person, the real person. You'll see a real different way," Manafort said, according to a New York Times' audio recording during the Republican National Committee's spring meetings.
But, Trump, on Saturday in Connecticut, directly addressed his new campaign chief's comments, completely discounting them.
"So what he [Manafort] did is took it and said, he will change and he won't build a wall and he won't do this. Everything I said I’m going to do, folks, I do, OK? Believe me. I do," Trump said to a crowd in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
As Manafort installs a new team, wresting away control from campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, he reports only to Trump, sources telling ABC News that Trump has given the former lobbyist expanded control. But as campaign power shifts, there seems to be a stark disconnect in what Manafort says his candidate will do, and what the candidate actually seems to be doing.
During that late meeting on Thursday, Manafort did say that Trump would still likely hurl all his usual insults but he suggested that the candidate would be different when RNC members met him in private.
"When he's out on the stage, when he's talking about the kinds of things that he's talking about out on the stump, he's projecting an image that's for that purpose," Manafort said.
Trump addressed that head-on as well.
"They had a meeting, and he [Manafort] said, 'Yes, Donald Trump knows, he’s really smart, and he will, you know, be different when he's in private.' Which is of course -- everybody is. When I’m speaking, who's not different than when you're in private?" Trump asked.
"We’re different when we’re talking about our policy speech as opposed to a speech when I’m with people, my friends, I call this my friends," he added.
Manafort, along with new National Political Director Rick Wiley and team, have an uphill battle ahead of them. They are tasked with assuaging tense relations with the Republican Party as well as those who will serve as delegates at the Republican National Convention in July.
They have not only Trump's past controversies working against them, but his current rhetoric as well.
As Manafort urged RNC members that Trump is not running against the RNC, Trump, on Saturday, said the opposite.
"So Paul was down and he said, 'Yeah, Donald, Donald will be a good member of the party,' and right now we're fighting the party, because it's a rigged system, it's a rigged system. OK?" Trump said.
But Manafort, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," insisted that there was no daylight between himself and the man he signed on to manage.
"What that clip was related to was a question that was asked talking about the settings that he was going to be in. On the campaign setting, you're seeing the real Donald Trump in campaign mode talking to -- talking to people who believe in his candidacy," Manafort said.
He added that his boss' comments stand.
"Donald Trump said it yesterday on the campaign trail in Waterbury, in Bridgeport, he addressed the issue completely," Manafort said. "He said it straight up."
"Wouldn’t it be interesting if I changed and everyone said, 'This is the most presidential candidate since Abraham Lincoln,' and then we started to lose. Wouldn’t that be terrible?" Trump asked on Sunday. "So we gotta be a little bit careful about changing, folks."
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