Subject: RE: AP: Trump team tells GOP he has been 'projecting an image'
From: "Sarge, Matthew" <[email-masked]>
To: "Roberts, Kelly" <[email-masked]>, Comm_D <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2016 17:22:56 -0700

More from that same audio recording from the meeting

NBC News: Manafort Tells RNC Trump Has a Different Private Persona<http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/manafort-tells-rnc-trump-has-different-private-persona-n560186>

Donald Trump has a different persona in private than he does in public and he'll shift his personality to appeal to women, minorities and other voters in a general election, his top aide told a meeting of the Republican National Committee on Thursday.

"When he's sitting in a room, he's talking business, he's talking politics in a private room, it's a different persona," top Trump aide Paul Manafort said during the meeting, a recording of which was obtained by NBC News. "When he's out on the stage, when he's talking about the kinds of things he's talking about on the stump, he's projecting an image that's for that purpose."

Manafort's comments come as Trump is trying to build a more professional campaign that can lock up the 1,237 delegates needed to win a majority at the Cleveland convention. But they're potentially problematic for a candidate who's built a brand centered on telling it like it is and accusing typical politicians of misleading voters.

In the meeting, Manafort cast Trump as playing a part aimed at winning over his core supporters.

"He [Trump] gets it," Manafort said, and "the part that he's been playing is evolving into the part that now you've been expecting, but he wasn't ready for because he had to first feed the first phase."

Manafort insisted that Trump's deep unpopularity nationwide, fueled by months of unapologetic bluster on the campaign trail, would be easily remedied when the candidate shifts gears. In contrast, Hillary Clinton's negatives are character driven and baked-in, Manafort argued.

"The negatives will come down, the image is going to change, but Clinton is still going to be 'Crooked Hillary,' and that's what you're going to be seeing a lot more of."

He also reassured RNC members that Trump will raise money for the party -- something he's so far avoided doing, Manafort said, because it would violate a campaign promise not to take donations.

"He's actually living his word, and that's what the base that we are attracting to the Trump campaign is looking for. They're looking for honesty, and they're looking for consistency, and they're looking for someone who does exactly what they say," Manafort said.

Manafort did assure the RNC that Trump has told him and another top aide, Rick Wiley, that the billionaire will spend what it takes to lock up the nomination before Cleveland.

"He's told Rick and I that he's willing to spend what's necessary to finish this out. That's a big statement from him," Manafort said. "It allows us to put a plan together so that we can make sure that we finish this thing early enough so that you can feel comfortable that he's going to be the nominee."

The meeting represented the Trump campaign's first pitch to the full RNC membership, who were gathered in Hollywood, Fla. for the party's Spring Meeting. Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich both made personal pitches to the 168 party leaders in attendance, while Trump sent Manafort, Political Director Rick Wiley and Ben Carson, a former opponent who's now one of his more prominent surrogates, on his behalf.

And it came as relations between Trump and the party leadership remain strained, as the candidate has railed against the GOP brass in recent weeks for a nominating process he's decried as "rigged" and "corrupt."

But as he moves closer to the nomination, the candidate has made some efforts to mend fences with GOP leaders and prove he can be a viable general election candidate, bringing on a team of seasoned new advisers and promising to moderate his tone and message on the trail.

Trump's aides aides have pledged voters will see a more presidential Trump on the campaign trail going forward, and the idea of "two Trumps" is not new — Carson said he had seen two different Trumps when he announced his endorsement of the candidate. Manafort made the case that Trump has put on his past "persona" to prove he could win elections and gain credibility with the party.

"The campaign model he put together, and the reason he hasn't been with you all yet, is a model of going out to the voters, and speaking to voters, and looking at winning states, looking to build his credibility, and so he had to prove that he could win elections," he said.

________________________________
From: Roberts, Kelly
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2016 8:16 PM
To: Comm_D
Subject: AP: Trump team tells GOP he has been 'projecting an image'

Trump team tells GOP he has been 'projecting an image'<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/97ff2c296579425c9825d6ea79aa2363/trump-cruz-feud-shifts-luxury-seaside-resort-florida>
AP – Steve Peoples and Thomas Beaumont

Donald Trump's chief lieutenants told skeptical Republican leaders Thursday that the GOP front-runner has been "projecting an image" so far in the 2016 primary season and "the part that he's been playing is now evolving" in a way that will improve his standing among general election voters.

The message, delivered behind closed doors in a private briefing, is part of the campaign's intensifying effort to convince party leaders Trump will moderate his tone in the coming months to help deliver big electoral gains this fall, despite his contentious ways.

Even as his team pressed Trump's case, he raised fresh concern among some conservatives by speaking against North Carolina's "bathroom law," which directs transgender people to use the bathroom that matches the sex on their birth certificates. Trump also came out against the federal government's plan to replace President Andrew Jackson with the civil-rights figure Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.

The developments came as the GOP's messy fight for the White House spilled into a seaside resort in south Florida. While candidates in both parties fanned out across the country before important primary contests in the Northeast, Hollywood's Diplomat Resort & Spa was transformed into a palm-treed political battleground.

Trump's newly hired senior aide, Paul Manafort, made the case to Republican National Committee members that Trump has two personalities: one in private and one onstage.

"When he's out on the stage, when he's talking about the kinds of things he's talking about on the stump, he's projecting an image that's for that purpose," Manafort said in a private briefing.

The Associated Press obtained a recording of the closed-door exchange.

"He gets it," Manafort said of Trump's need to moderate his personality. "The part that he's been playing is evolving into the part that now you've been expecting, but he wasn't ready for, because he had first to complete the first phase. The negatives will come down. The image is going to change."

The message was welcomed by some party officials but criticized by others who suggested it raised doubts about his authenticity.

"He's trying to moderate. He's getting better," said Ben Carson, a Trump ally who was part of the GOP's front-runner's RNC outreach team.

While Trump's top advisers were promising Republican leaders that the GOP front-runner would moderate his message, the candidate was telling voters he wasn't ready to act presidential.

"I just don't know if I want to do it yet," Trump said during a raucous rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Thursday that was frequently interrupted by protesters.

"At some point, I'm going to be so presidential that you people will be so bored," he said, predicting that the size of his crowds would dwindle if he dialed back his rhetoric.

There was evidence of drama on the Democratic side as well.

Prominent Southern Democrats urged Bernie Sanders to stop dismissing Hillary Clinton's landslide primary wins across the South, where the front-runner's popularity among non-whites has helped fuel her success.

Sanders said the results in the South "distort reality" because they came from the country's "most conservative region."

Don Fowler of South Carolina, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and other Clinton supporters told Sanders in a letter that "our national Democratic leaders" should "invest in our races and causes — to amplify our voices, not diminish them."

Yet as Clinton's grasp on the Democratic nomination tightens, Trump's overwhelming Republican delegate lead has done little to calm concerns from GOP leaders, gathered at the resort for the party's meeting.

As Trump continues to rail against "a rigged" nomination process, he sent Manafort and his newly hired political director, Rick Wiley, to help improve relationships with party officials at the meeting.

"He might not win some of these blue states, but you can make the Democrats spend money and time," Wiley said.

Trump's team also signaled to RNC members a fresh willingness to dip into the New York real estate mogul's personal fortune to fund his presidential bid, in addition to helping the national committee raise money, a promise that comes just as Trump launches his first big television advertising campaign in a month.

His campaign reserved about $2 million worth of air time in soon-to-vote Pennsylvania and Indiana, advertising tracker Kantar Media's CMAG shows.

"He's willing to spend what is necessary to finish this out. That's a big statement from him," Manafort said in the briefing.

Trump is increasingly optimistic about his chances in five states holding primary contests Tuesday: Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. He is now the only Republican candidate who can possibly collect the 1,237-delegate majority needed to claim the nomination before the party's July convention.

Chief rival Ted Cruz hopes Trump will fall short of a nomination-clinching delegate majority so that he can turn enough delegates to his side at the convention to give him the prize.

The political posturing came as Trump sparked new criticism by addressing the debate over which bathrooms transgender people should use.

Speaking at a town-hall event on NBC's "Today" show Thursday, Trump said North Carolina's bathroom law has caused unnecessary strife and transgender people should be able to choose which bathroom to use.

"There have been very few complaints the way it is," Trump said. "People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate."

Cruz lashed out at Trump's "support of grown men using women's restrooms." The Texas senator called Trump's position "a reckless policy that will endanger our loved ones."

Trump also said the plan to swap Jackson for Tubman on the $20 bill is an act of "pure political correctness."