Trump aide: ‘This is not a hard race’
A top aide to Donald Trump said the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s campaign staff is the only obstacle to winning the general election in November.
“He’s gonna win,” Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman and chief strategist, told The Huffington Post.
{mosads}”He’s gonna win unless we — meaning people like me — screw it up. This is not a hard race.”
Manafort said he expects Trump to stay true to his convictions. Though he admitted that the billionaire may alter his views on a few issues, he said he doesn’t plan major changes to the campaign.
“You don’t change Donald Trump,” Manafort said. “You don’t ‘manage’ him.”
Manafort mentioned Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from coming into the U.S., noting the businessman has “already started moderating on that.”
“He operates by starting the conversation at the outer edges and then brings it back towards the middle. Within his comfort zone, he’ll soften it some more,” Manafort said
“He’ll still end up outside of the norm, but in line with what the American people are thinking.”
Manafort said, however, though that Trump still plans to build a border wall, adding that the proposal is a “core thing with him.”
“He will push strongly, and he will push for the immigration changes just as strongly.”
Manafort also brushed off criticism of Trump’s unreleased tax returns.
“I will be surprised if he puts them out. I wouldn’t necessarily advise him to. It’s not really an issue for the people we are appealing to. His tax returns are incredibly complicated. I wouldn’t understand them, so how are the American people going to? The financial disclosure he put out gives the salient points,” Manafort said.
“The only people who want the tax returns are the people who want to defeat him.”
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