Inside the Failing Mission to Tame Trump’s Tongue

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.

Interesting. I haven’t seen the CT speech yet. I was thinking more of his Detroit economic speech, as well as his talks before the Homebuilders Association and the Pews and Pastors group. Even though I didn’t care for his endorsement of Paul Ryan I thought his Green Bay speech about unity was also pretty presidential. His VFW speech during the Dem convention contained a lot of detailed policy.

I’ve missed some of his recent rallies, but of the ones I’ve seen, I thought they were more focused, less rambling, more substantive, and he made sure to hit Hillary hard at least a little in each of them. For example, he focused a lot on jobs and trade in the early parts of his Erie, PA speech, even though he was still entertaining and fun (and very much Trump). He focused in on coal in his Abingdon speech, and his Fort Lauderdale rally had some good hits on Hillary and Obama and strong points on foreign policy.

In general, he seems to be honing in on Hillary better than before and not going off on tangents nearly as much as before. He’s also reading more from notes during his rallies, which allows him to add more details and keep better organized. His new charts serve a similar purpose. Of course, each of Trump’s rallies are (fortunately) different, but I do think these are the general trends.

CT may have been a special case, because he felt he was talking to people he really knows and understands. And you’re right, his major speeches have been more focused and substantial, for sure.

But really, two free form speeches a day over the next three months will give him plenty of free press coverage. The question is whether he can keep to the fine line of stirring things up just enough, but not too much.

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