Trump stand-ins struggle to speak for nominee

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump isn’t making it easy for top supporters and advisers, from his running mate on down, to defend him or explain some campaign positions.

On the Sunday news shows, a parade of Trump stand-ins, led by vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence, couldn’t say whether Trump was sticking with or changing a central promise to boot the roughly 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally, with the help of a “deportation force.” And they didn’t bother defending his response Saturday to the killing of a mother as she walked her baby on a Chicago street.

Questioned on whether it’s a problem that the GOP presidential nominee has left key details on immigration policy unclear so late in the election, Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus demurred: “I just don’t speak for Donald Trump.”

It was a striking look at Trump’s leadership of a team he had said would help drive him to victory in the Nov. 8 election.

The very purpose of surrogates is to speak for and back up their presidential nominee. But Team Trump has struggled to do so even as they stayed tightly together on the details they know: Trump will issue more details on the immigration plan soon, the policy will be humane and despite his wavering, he’s been “consistent” on the issue. Any discussion of inconsistencies or potentially unpresidential tweeting, Pence and others suggested, reflected media focus on the wrong issue.

The right issue, they said, was whether Hillary Clinton crossed ethical lines during her tenure as secretary of state by talking with people outside the government who had contributed to her family’s philanthropy foundation. Priebus’s counterpart at the Democratic National Committee, Donna Brazile, said there’s no evidence of that. Clinton on Sunday was raising campaign money in the Hamptons, a vacation spot for the wealthy on Long Island.