As the 2016 Republican National Convention began, GOP chairman Reince Priebus spoke with confidence about the coming transformation of presumptive nominee Donald Trump. “He knows the pivot is important,” Priebus said. “He has been better and I think he’s going to be great moving forward.” Priebus was hardly alone. Republican leaders have been saying the same thing for months now, elevating hope over reality as they pretend that Trump might suddenly become rational and responsible, curious and consistent, honest and honorable.
Instead, Trump has been more volatile, more bizarre, more mendacious, and more reckless. In the time since he accepted the nomination Trump has, among other things: revived a crackpot theory on Ted Cruz’s father and the JFK assassination; suggested his adopted party is filled with people who don’t want to help others; invited Russia to influence the U.S. presidential election; smeared the parents of a fallen U.S. Army captain; trashed a retired four-star general; and appeared not to know that Russia had annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
Some of this is merely aggravating. Some of it is outlandish. Some of it is insulting. And some of it is frightening. Trump accepted the Republican nomination in Cleveland on July 21. Here’s what he’s done since.
July 22
Fewer than 12 hours after his acceptance speech, Trump revived the conspiracy theory he’s previously floated about the involvement of Rafael Cruz with Lee Harvey Oswald in the months before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. At a press availability during an event to thank campaign volunteers, Trump said:
Trump argued that the National Enquirer deserves a Pulitzer Prize and noted that the paper wouldn’t print a picture that was “wrong” because they’d be sued. He continued: “Did anybody ever deny that it was the father? They’re not saying: ‘Oh, that wasn’t really my father.’ It was a little hard to do. It looked like him.”
Cruz and his father have repeatedly denied that it’s Rafael Cruz in the picture. Scholars who have studied Lee Harvey Oswald and the Kennedy assassination say there is no evidence Rafael Cruz had any association with either.
July 26
In an interview with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News meant to counterprogram the Democratic National Convention’s caricature of Republicans, Trump instead bolstered the arguments from the podium in Philadelphia. In a discussion of the minimum wage, in which Trump said he would both keep the minimum wage at the same rate and that he would raise it—”I would leave it and raise it somewhat”—the Republican nominee suggested the members of the party he now leads are cold-hearted. “You need to help people. And I know it’s not very Republican to say, but you need to help people,” he said. “I would say $10—but with the understanding that somebody like me is going to bring back jobs.”
July 27
At a press conference in Florida, a reporter asked Trump about news reports that the Russian government hacked the Democratic National Committee and made them public.
“If they hacked, the probably have her 33,000 emails. I hope they do,” Trump said, referring to the emails Hillary Clinton deleted from her private server, claiming, improbably, that the emails were all “personal” and did not require turning over to the State Department. “They probably have her 33,000 emails that she lost and deleted, because you’d see some beauties there. So let’s see.”
Trump, looking directly into the camera, called for Russia to share the emails publicly to damage his political opponent: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens. That’ll be next.”
July 27
In an interview with the New York Times, Trump was asked about the high-quality production of the Democratic convention and the relatively chaotic, disjointed Republican convention. He said, defensively: “I didn’t produce our show—I just showed up for the final speech on Thursday.”
In fact, Trump and his team played a lead role in directing much of the convention programming. They had final say on all of the speakers and played an instrumental role in the decision-making on what the public would see on their television screens over the four days of the conventions.
July 29
In an interview with Maureen Dowd, Trump attacked the mother of a U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004 protecting his troops. The soldier’s father, Khizr Khan, spoke at the Democratic convention on July 28, criticizing Trump for his proposal (since revised) to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. His wife Ghazala stood at his side. Trump, apparently under the impression that Ghazala Khan didn’t speak because she wasn’t allowed, said: “I’d like to hear his wife say something.” Ghazala Khan would later explain in a Washington Post op-ed why she did not speak. “Just talking about it is hard for me all the time.…I cannot walk into a room with pictures of Humayun. For all these years, I haven’t been able to clean the closet where his things are — I had to ask my daughter-in-law to do it. Walking onto the convention stage, with a huge picture of my son behind me, I could hardly control myself. What mother could? Donald Trump has children whom he loves. Does he really need to wonder why I did not speak?”
July 29
At a rally in Denver, Trump went after General John Allen, a four-star general who has helped lead America’s war on terror. Allen had criticized Trump two days earlier, on the final night of the Democratic convention. And Trump, who rarely lets a criticism go unanswered, responded by calling Allen a “failed general.” Many in the crowd at the Trump rally booed Allen.
July 30
In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Trump continued his attacks on the family of the fallen soldier, hinting that Khizr Khan’s words were not his own. The full interview would air Sunday, July 31. ABC released excerpts on Saturday. “Who wrote that? Did Hillary’s script writers write it?” Trump asked.
When Stephanopoulos asked Trump to discuss sacrifices he’s made for his country, Trump said: “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve had tremendous success. I think I’ve done a lot.”
Trump used the interview to attack Ghazala Khan a second time. “If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.”
July 30
At another point in his interview with Stephanopoulos, Trump hinted at a conspiracy to boost Hillary Clinton in the selection of dates for the three presidential debates this fall. Stephanopoulos asked if Trump intended to participate in all three debates. “Well, I’ll tell you what I don’t like. It’s against two NFL games. I got a letter from the NFL saying, ‘This is ridiculous.’ Why are the debates against—’cause the NFL doesn’t want to go against the debates. ‘Cause the debates are going to be pretty massive, from what I understand, okay? And I don’t think we should be against the NFL. I don’t know how the dates were picked.” Trump reiterated that he didn’t like the dates picked, and added: “Hillary Clinton wants to be against the NFL.”
The dates were selected and announced by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates nearly a year ago. Here is the press release, dated September 23, 2015. The debates were set long before either Trump or Clinton were the major-party nominees.
And the NFL disputes sending a letter to Trump at all. Brian McCarthy, an NFL spokesman, tweeted: “While we’d obviously wish the Debate Commission could find another night, we did not send a letter to Mr Trump.”
July 30
In the same ABC interview, Trump initially claimed that Vladimir Putin would never invade Ukraine. “He’s not going to go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down. You can put it down.” When Stephanopoulos pointed out that Russia was “already there,” Trump blamed Obama. And then, parroting Russian propaganda about the annexation of the Crimean peninsula, he claimed that the takeover was what the Ukrainians living there wanted. “The people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were.” Just days earlier, Trump had raised the prospect of recognizing Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula and lifting the sanctions the came as a result.
Trump’s comments to Stephanopoulos came in response to a question about why Trump advisers had softened language about Ukraine in the GOP platform. “I was not involved in that,” Trump said. “I’d have to take a look at it.” On Meet the Press, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who has strong ties to Putin-friendly figures in Ukraine and elsewhere, said the Trump campaign had “absolutely” nothing to do with the changes. Josh Rogin, the Washington Post columnist who first reported the Trump campaign’s efforts in a detailed article before the convention, told CNN: “That’s just a lie. There’s no other way to put it.”
Most Republicans who have endorsed Trump spent the past two weeks seeking to avoid comment on Trump and his continuing dysfunction. Others have shown more courage, occasionally repudiating Trump’s noxious words while not naming him. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, the top Republicans in Congress, did not repudiate Trump by name, but released statements of praise for Humayun Khan and support for his parents after Trump’s affronts. Following Trump’s call for the Russians to release Hillary Clinton’s email if they have them, Reince Priebus pushed back, telling THE WEEKLY STANDARD that he hoped foreign powers do not have them. “As I’ve said many times last week, God forbid if any foreign government finds those emails—we don’t want that to happen.” Still others—very few in number—have mentioned Trump by name and condemned his comments in a straightforward way.
But think about this: Despite the Kennedy assassination conspiracies and the request for Russian interference in our elections, despite the stunning ignorance and now-common crudeness—no prominent Republican officeholder or commentator has withdrawn his or her endorsement of Donald Trump.
It is, indeed, Trump’s party now.
