Donald J. Trump was in a state of shock: He had just fired his campaign manager and was watching the man discuss his dismissal at length on CNN. The rattled candidate’s advisers and family seized the moment for an intervention.
Joined by his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, a cluster of Mr. Trump’s confidants pleaded with him to make that day — June 20 — a turning point.
He would have to stick to a teleprompter and end his freestyle digressions and insults, like his repeated attacks on a Hispanic federal judge. Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey argued that Mr. Trump had an effective message, if only he would deliver it. For now, the campaign’s polling showed, too many voters described him in two words: “unqualified” and “racist.”
Mr. Trump bowed to his team’s entreaties, according to four people with detailed knowledge of the meeting, who described it on the condition of anonymity. It was time, he agreed, to get on track.
Nearly two months later, the effort to save Mr. Trump from himself has plainly failed. He has repeatedly signaled to his advisers and allies his willingness to change and adapt, but has grown only more volatile and prone to provocation since then, clashing with a Gold Star family, making comments that have been seen as inciting violence and linking his political opponents to terrorism.
Advisers who once hoped a Pygmalion-like transformation would refashion a crudely effective political showman into a plausible American president now increasingly concede that Mr. Trump may be beyond coaching. He has ignored their pleas and counsel as his poll numbers have dropped, boasting to friends about the size of his crowds and maintaining that he can read surveys better than the professionals.
In private, Mr. Trump’s mood is often sullen and erratic, his associates say. He veers from barking at members of his staff to grumbling about how he was better off following his own instincts during the primaries and suggesting he should not have heeded their calls for change.
He broods about his souring relationship with the news media, calling Mr. Manafort several times a day to talk about specific stories. Occasionally, Mr. Trump blows off steam in bursts of boyish exuberance: At the end of a fund-raiser on Long Island last week, he playfully buzzed the crowd twice with his helicopter.
But in interviews with more than 20 Republicans who are close to Mr. Trump or in communication with his campaign, many of whom insisted on anonymity to avoid clashing with him, they described their nominee as exhausted, frustrated and still bewildered by fine points of the political process and why his incendiary approach seems to be sputtering. [...]
People around Mr. Trump and his operation say they are not ready to abandon hope of a turnaround. But he is in a dire predicament, Republicans say, because he is profoundly uncomfortable in the role of a typical general election candidate, disoriented by the crosscurrents he must now navigate and still relying impulsively on a pugilistic formula that guided him to the nomination.
His advisers are still convinced of the basic potency of a sales pitch about economic growth and a shake-up in Washington, and they aspire to compete in as many as 21 states, despite Mr. Trump’s perilous standing in the four states — Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina — likely to decide the election.[...]
Even before Mr. Trump’s most recent spate of incendiary comments, Republicans who dealt with him after the primaries came away alarmed by his obvious unease as the de facto party leader. After a meeting in late May between Mr. Trump and Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush’s presidential victories, Mr. Rove told associates he was stunned by Mr. Trump’s poor grasp of campaign basics, including how to map out a schedule and use data to reach voters.[...]
Mr. Trump’s advisers believe he is nearly out of time to right his campaign. On Tuesday, hours before his explosive comment about “Second Amendment people” taking action if Mrs. Clinton is elected, his brain trust reassembled again at Trump Tower in a reprise of their stern meeting in June.
They again urged Mr. Trump to adjust his tone and comportment. The top pollster, Tony Fabrizio, gave an unvarnished assessment, warning that Mr. Trump’s numbers would only move in one direction, absent a major change.
Mr. Trump, people briefed on the meeting said, digested the advice and responded receptively.
It was time, he agreed, to get on track.
Being a leader is challenging. On the one hand, a good leader has his coterie of advisers. On the other hand, every adviser wants his advice followed without regard to how it might fit in the big picture. A leader has to make each adviser feel valued while actually ignoring their advice on occasion.
ReplyDeleteI like to mention in this context the producer Mike Todd A"H. He would produce a show that the audience liked, but then the costume designer would complain to him that this or that was wrong with the costumes during the performance, and so on with the other heads of different departments in the production.
Donald Trump is going to roll over his opponent during the debates. Whether that will translate into a victory in the elections is a side issue. The country will witness the difference between someone who speaks their mind and someone who is "Isha Tza'ida B'pheh".
Thanks for this latest slam from the failing gray lady that is changing to corpse color. They print all the news that's unfit to print and will twist it into whatever form they can to smear their enemies.
ReplyDeleteKarl Rove, the jerkitecht, has been the bane of the Republican party since Bush left office and anything he says has no value. The Zip question and answer unbiased app shows Trump winning in a landslide. His recent speeches about Isis and economic policy have been acclaimed as historic even by those who are strongly against him such as Ben Shapiro.
It's good that he is down in the polls. This way his enemies can rest on their laurels.
wow - I am definitely getting ready to celebrate Trump's landslide victory - I suggest you bet all you have on it since it such a well kept secret
ReplyDeleteThe selection of who leads the country will come from Shomayim depending on what Klal Yisrael deserves. If Klal Yisrael deserves a buffoon to lead the country, Trump will receive Siyata Dishmaya. If we chas v'shalom merit to have leaders like we call a Gadol even though he won't say a word to undo the damage he did that may cause mamzerim, we'll end up with a corrupt crook who would sell the country's nuclear launch codes to line her own pocket.
ReplyDeleteSo why are you attack Clinton - she is what she is and it is G-d's decision?
ReplyDeleteWhen we see a danger looming on the horizon it should inspire us to teshuva. Just like when the house painter rose to power in 1933.
ReplyDeleteWe need to do our Hishtadlus.
ReplyDeleteRush Limbaugh, commenting on the New York Times story has an interesting take. After mentioning that the '20 anonymous Trump insiders' remark that Trump is depressed, Limbaugh continues, “He's (Trump’s) inconsolable that none of this is working out the way he thought it would work out. There are people ostensibly -- ostensibly, it's in New York Times -- close to the Trump campaign who say that Trump really thought he'd been able to win over the media with his charm and with his public appearances and with the charismatic nature of his personality and so forth, much as he did during the primaries.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I mean, not to get too serious here (chuckling), folks, 'cause I don't know that called for, but does anybody think this was gonna be easy? What are we doing here? What did this election really turn out to be about? It turns out to be trying to take away all of the reins of power and all of the perks and everything associated with being a member of the establishment. Did anybody think that the establishment -- be they Republican, Democrat, Martian, communist, whatever -- were just gonna sit around and leave that up to the democratic process? (chuckles) They are not.”
Pat Caddell, commentator and Democratic pollster, in comments made on Breibart, is confident that Trump will close the current polling gap with Clinton. After citing polling data showing that Americans have lost their faith in the media, he states that they (the press) “…need to be challenged institutionally... Remember what they’re trying to do. They’re not trying just to knock Trump off. They need to suppress that which they have not been able to do all year, this rebellion out in the hinterlands, in both parties — whether it’s the Democrats’ revolt with Sanders, the Republican revolt with Trump — to suppress this instinct of the American people, to take control back of their country.”
“That’s the issue: who runs America?” Caddell declared. “And I’ll tell you, when you start elevating to those seminal issues, then you have a campaign in which people will be fully engaged. They’re going to discount a lot of the attacks. If it weren’t Trump, if Trump were somebody else, the nicest person in the world or whatever, they would be doing the same thing to that person, because that person represents a threat to their power, and their prestige, and their positions. And they will try to hold on to those at all costs. That’s why you can’t just get fooled by the way they try to turn the microscope up.”
It is ironic that Daas Torah, iconoclastic vis-à-vis a corrupt Religious Establishment, becomes conforming and indeed sympathetic regarding a dissolute Political Establishment/Media. Why lend the NYT another base for their microscope?
Enjoy the fantasy world. Care to place a bet on the election outcome?
ReplyDeleteRush Limbaugh, commenting on the New York Times story has an interesting take. After mentioning the ‘20 anonymous Trump insiders’ remark that Trump is depressed, Limbaugh continues, “He's (Trump’s) inconsolable that none of this is working out the way he thought it would work out. There are people ostensibly -- ostensibly, it's in New York Times -- close to the Trump campaign who say that Trump really thought he'd been able to win over the media with his charm and with his public appearances and with the charismatic nature of his personality and so forth, much as he did during the primaries.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I mean, not to get too serious here (chuckling), folks, 'cause I don't know that called for, but does anybody think this was gonna be easy? What are we doing here? What did this election really turn out to be about? It turns out to be trying to take away all of the reins of power and all of the perks and everything associated with being a member of the establishment. Did anybody think that the establishment -- be they Republican, Democrat, Martian, communist, whatever -- were just gonna sit around and leave that up to the democratic process? (chuckles) They are not.”
Pat Caddell, commentator and Democratic pollster, in comments made on Breibart, is confident that Trump will close the current polling gap with Clinton. After citing polling data showing that Americans have lost their faith in the media, he stated that they (the press) “…need to be challenged institutionally... Remember what they’re trying to do. They’re not trying just to knock Trump off. They need to suppress that which they have not been able to do all year, this rebellion out in the hinterlands, in both parties — whether it’s the Democrats’ revolt with Sanders, the Republican revolt with Trump — to suppress this instinct of the American people, to take control back of their country.”
“That’s the issue: who runs America?” Caddell declared. “And I’ll tell you, when you start elevating to those seminal issues, then you have a campaign in which people will be fully engaged. They’re going to discount a lot of the attacks. If it weren’t Trump, if Trump were somebody else, the nicest person in the world or whatever, they would be doing the same thing to that person, because that person represents a threat to their power, and their prestige, and their positions. And they will try to hold on to those at all costs. That’s why you can’t just get fooled by the way they try to turn the microscope up.”
It is ironic that Daas Torah, iconoclastic vis-à-vis a corrupt Religious Establishment, becomes conforming and indeed sympathetic towards a dissolute Political Establishment/Media. Why give the NYT an additional base for their microscope?
you got it wrong - I am no iconoclast - I am just trying to establish the truth. And the way I see it - it is Trump the nut vs Clinton the corrupt
ReplyDeleteI did not mean ‘iconoclast’ in a pejorative sense. Attacking ‘cherished beliefs or Institutions’ in order to uphold the truth is a fine thing and worth fighting for. Being an Iconoclast is a tough job, especially if one needs to deliver a tough message, for the Institution will attack the messenger. Daas Torah, in his yeoman’s work regarding the ‘get’ scandal, knows this well. America’s Political Establishment is corrupt and Hillary exemplifies the worst of that corruption. The media is her maid servant. Donald Trump, like a phoenix rising from the ashes (pardon the reference to Greek mythology), in pure iconoclastic form, is attacking the Establishment, their ‘cherished beliefs and Institutions’. The media must demean his character and turn him into a ‘nut’; for if they publish his message, the Establishment is finished.
ReplyDeleteAs I have mentioned before, over 40% of Americans see beyond Trump’s brash public persona, they ‘get it”, and are not fooled by the media’s assault on this man of great accomplishment.
I'm sure you can tell me all about it.
ReplyDeleteNope, because the main issue is election fraud which the Democrats are famous for and that is really the crucial issue in the next election.
You seem to be deluded as the Romney campaign was in 2012, when they couldn't believe that the polls had been correct the entire time. Being that Trump is far behind in every national poll, including those commissioned by Fox News and Breitbart, why in the world would you think that it would take (almost non-existent) election fraud for Clinton to win?
ReplyDeleteMost of the polls show a few point difference which at this time is totally meaningless. Additionally, the non biased zip poll is a much more realistic index of what is happening. Democratic election fraud is well known and widespread. Ask Mellowese Richardson about it.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad he is behind at this point. I think it is very good for the Democrats to rest on their laurels and not engage in other underhanded activities.
but why are you saying he is behind - when your really think he is leading?
ReplyDeleteBecause all the Leftist media wants to project this image to prop up Hillary. They won't pay attention to any other sources.
ReplyDeleteYour facts are simply wrong. Clinton is ahead by 7-8% nationally, and in the swing states that are most important she is ahead by far more than that. 538 collects basically every poll out there, why not check it out?
ReplyDeleteKeep watching and trusting your polls and see how far you get. As I said, I'm happy that she is ahead in the too early meaningless polls. We'll see what happens when it really counts.
ReplyDeleteI'm not concerned nor impressed by polls. If you like them, you can continue to trust in them.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, whatever happens is in the hands of Hashem and will be for the best although it might not be obvious.
Cute. You say that the only way Clinton will win is if there is voter fraud, and when confronted by the fact that she is far ahead in all the polls, you say that you don't trust the polls. That is a very effective way of being in denial.
ReplyDeleteIf the election were held today Trump will lose. But who will be the next President of the United States will actually be determined on Wednesday, October 12, 2016. Who knows? Maybe it will be someone the country actually likes and trusts.
ReplyDeleteThe recent reports say that they are a point apart even though they are pretty much meaningless at this point. Hillary's best weapon is voter fraud and as long as she thinks she's ahead she won't use it as much or use other nefarious methods.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with you - she is an expert in vodoo and is working on turning Trump into a Democrat!
ReplyDeleteYou're reports lately have the flavor and quality of voodoo as do many of your recent decisions so I guess you should know. The weird decision to pick a known law breaker over a possible erratic lawmaker doesn't have any other reasonable basis but black magic.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with you. Check out the history of past polling failures and you will see that they have a dismal record and used mainly as a tool to put down and disparage opponents.
ReplyDeleteWhat's supposed to happen on that date?
"possibly erratic" is like describing a tsunami as a wave
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the state department just admitted that the $400 million was ransom
ReplyDeletehttp://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2016/08/18/obama-admin-admits-sent-400-million-iran-release-american-prisoners/
Check the calendar.
ReplyDeleteAs a pointed out before, if the U.S. government secured the release of three citizens held by a hostile regime by giving them their own money, which they would have to give in any event, more power to them.
ReplyDeleteYes, you are right.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, your facts are not facts. The most recent national polls (taken over the last week) have her ahead by 1, 2, 6, 7, 4, 6, and 6, respectively. Even far more important, she now has a +10 point lead in enough states to get her past 270.
ReplyDeleteMore silly reasons to excuse capitulation and ransom while trying to claim there was no ransom. Keep trying you might be right one of these days.
ReplyDeleteTalking about the fantasy world, your fantasy of a straight and honest Comey has been totally destroyed
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wsj.com/articles/the-secrets-of-cheryl-mills-1474932673
Read the comments also and see that the feeling that Comey was corrupt in universal.