After his Tuesday big win in New York’s GOP state primary election, Donald Trump declared that since he now has enough delegates to be the Republican Party presidential nominee, he will begin to act more “presidential,” as befitting the party nominee.
That was followed by his remarks in an interview on NBC’s Today about North Carolina’s controversial bathroom room law, HB2, which, by stopping local governments from passing anti-discrimination rules, effectively requires so-called “transgender” students to use bathrooms assigned to their biological sex at birth.
In the interview, Trump said North Carolina should “leave it the way it is” because before HB2, “there have been very few problems. There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go. They use the bathroom they feel is appropriate. There has been so little trouble. And the problem with what happened in North Carolina is the strife and the economic — I mean the economic punishment that they’re taking.”
A day later, faced with backlash from conservatives, Trump is trying to walk back his remark.
In an interview on Fox News tonight, Trump told host Sean Hannity:
“I love North Carolina, and they have a law, and it’s a law that, you know, unfortunately is causing them some problems. And I fully understand that they want to go through, but they are losing business, and they are having people come out against. I think that local communities and states should make the decision. And I feel very strongly about that. The federal government should not be involved.”
More disturbing still is what a senior Trump campaign official, Paul Manaford, allegedly told GOP elites.
Paul Manaford, 67, is a long-time lobbyist, Republican political consultant, and a senior partner in the firm Davis, Manafort and Freedman. He was an adviser to the presidential campaigns of Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and John McCain. In March 2016, Manaford joined the presidential campaign of Donald Trump to lead Trump’s “delegate-corralling” efforts, and quickly gained control of the campaign’s $20 million budget, hiring decisions, advertising, and media strategy.
According to two reporters, MSNBC political correspondent Kasie Hunt and Time magazine political reporter Zeke Miller, Manaford yesterday informed Republican elites that Trump’s campaign persona is — wink, wink — just an act.
Here are Hunt’s and Miller’s tweets:
So which is the truth?
- That Trump is trying to soothe GOP elites and allay their fears by telling them that his campaign persona is just an act?
- Or that, thus far, Trump has been faking it to win conservative primary voters?
H/t Townhall.com
~Eowyn
