Donald Trump signaled this week that he is at long last ready to be a serious, more “presidential” candidate, but the Washington Post editorial board isn’t having any of it.
“Do you remember when Donald Trump crudely mocked the disability of a New York Times reporter, and then lied about having done so? No? That’s just as the Republican candidate might hope,” the board wrote in an article titled “Don’t be fooled by the ‘new’ Donald Trump.”
For the Post, the Trump that everyone has seen on the campaign trail is the one that they’re going to get.
The Post is one of the few media outlets that isn’t buying Trump’s presidential pivot. Following the billionaire businessman’s decisive victory in the New York Republican primary Tuesday, he delivered a victory speech wherein his preferred nickname for Ted Cruz (“Lyin’ Ted”) was notably absent, and commentators in the press took note.
Later, in a series of interviews, Trump suggested the GOP should moderate its position on abortion, and he said he doesn’t see a problem with transgender people using restrooms that correspond best to the gender with which they identify.
Trump himself said he plans to become more “presidential.” The media noticed, and a narrative took shape.
Coupled with Trump’s newfound love for Teleprompters, and a few notable campaign hires, newsrooms looked at his remarks this week and reported the casino tycoon appears to be positioning himself for the general election as a more serious candidate.
ABC News characterized the new hires a “serious campaign restructuring.”
“Trump Shakes Up Campaign as He Gets Serious About Winning,” Vanity Fair reported.
Slate gave a nod to newsrooms pushing the “alleged general-election pivot.”
MSNBC reported, “Donald Trump is seemingly making a pivot and adopting more traditional campaign tactics as he moves closer to the general election.”
“Donald Trump starts shift toward November clash with Hillary Clinton,” the Los Angeles Times declared after the Tuesday GOP primary in New York.
An op-ed published on FoxNews.com asked, “Will Trump take advantage of May’s light pace to transition from temper tantrums to a style more tempered? It’s the practical thing to do. Especially when confronted with national poll numbers that, for now at least, are practically awful.”
Even the Washington Post claimed in a headline, “Donald Trump goes full-on general election mode, even opposing North Carolina’s ‘bathroom bill.'”
The paper’s editorial board, however, thinks this is a load of garbage, and said people should not be fooled by any phony “pivots.”
“Now that he is nearing the Republican nomination, he says he will become more ‘presidential,'” the board wrote. “You can expect multitudes of office-seekers and sycophants to follow [New Jersey Gov.] Chris Christie’s craven path to believing, or pretending to believe, in a presidential Trump.”
But it is important, they added, to remember what kind of person Donald Trump is.
“Remember that Mr. Trump falsely claimed that thousands of American Muslims had celebrated the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11,” it wrote. “Remember that Mr. Trump said that Mexicans crossing the border are rapists, though ‘some, I assume, are good people.'”
“Remember, now that Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly has sought to make peace with Mr. Trump, that he insinuated that she had asked him a tough question because she was menstruating,” it added. “Remember that he called her a bimbo, sick, overrated and crazy.”
The rest of the editorial continued in that thread, as the board presented example after example of why it believes there is no “presidential” version of Trump that is capable of separating itself from his true character.
“Remember that Mr. Trump promised to order American soldiers and intelligence officers to torture their prisoners,” the board wrote. “Remember that Mr. Trump vowed to ban Muslims from entering the country, though he never explained how he would enforce this edict.”
“Remember that Mr. Trump vowed to kill the innocent children of suspected terrorists,” it added.
