Prepared texts joining other changes in Trump’s campaign
Revision means less off-the-cuff comment and more substance
“I’m glad (Trump’s) been cleaning it up a bit. He’s not so all over the map and that’s good.” Tonya Lohr, a Trump supporter
The latest reboot of Donald Trump’s campaign comes with a script.
Following another staff shakeup, Trump has taken to reading prepared speeches from teleprompters at his mass rallies, seeking to reach beyond his political base and reduce the incendiary off-the-cuff comments that have sidetracked previous efforts.
While backers said a more disciplined style will help Trump rally against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, critics said it’s probably too late for the Republican nominee, who trails by large margins in several key states.
“The pivot that he’s made is on substance,” newly minted Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Sunday on ABC’s
This Week, noting that the GOP candidate is devoting his new stump speech to issues such as law enforcement, middle class tax relief and “defeating radical Islamic terrorism.”
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus, appearing on CBS’ Face The Nation, said Trump is now focused and consistent, and “if he continues down this path” he will close the gap with Clinton.
Members of the Clinton campaign said that, as with previous iterations, there is no “new Trump,” and that a few prepared speeches won’t erase offensive comments he made during the first 14 months of his campaign.
“They can make him read new words from a teleprompter,” Clinton told supporters last week, “but he is still the same man who insults Gold Star families, demeans women, mocks people with disabilities and thinks he knows more about ISIS than our generals.”
The new approach surfaced as Trump announced Wednesday that Conway, a veteran Republican pollster and strategist, would become his campaign manager, while Stephen K. Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, would become campaign CEO.
Two days later, Trump — who fired top aide Corey Lewandowski just two months before — said campaign chairman Paul Manafort would be departing.
Amid the staff upheaval, Trump said during a prepared speech Thursday in North Carolina that he regretted offensive comments he has made in the heat of battle. Neither he nor aides specified which comments he was referring to.
In previous weeks and months, Trump reserved prepared texts for what aides billed as major addresses on economic and foreign policy. He gave such a speech Monday at Youngstown State University in Ohio on ways to combat Islamic State extremists.
As he changed his campaign team, Trump brought his teleprompter to more traditional political rallies in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan and Virginia.
The new stump speech includes an agenda with proposals to rebuild the military, restrict immigration by Middle East refugees, build a wall along the U.S.Mexico border and change trade deals that he says send jobs overseas. These are all themes he has mentioned throughout the campaign.
Trump will continue to make policy speeches, aides said, including a soon-to-be announced address on immigration. Trump, who has proposed a new “deportation force,” told a Hispanic advisory council that he may propose a “humane” way to address the at least 11 million undocumented migrants who are already in the country.
Asked if he would include the “deportation force” in his immigration plan, Conway told CNN’s
State of the Union: “To be determined.”
Supporters who trekked to a convention center in Fredericksburg, Va., said they liked Trump’s new approach.
“I’m glad he’s been cleaning it up a bit,” said Tonya Lohr, 36. “He’s not so all over the map and that’s good.”