Thursday on CNN’S “New Day,” Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Trump is wining because he is “closing with a positive message.”
Partial transcript as follows:
CUOMO: So we see the polls moving closer especially battleground states.Why?
KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Especially in blue states, also because Donald Trump is closing with a positive message. He’s talking about his love for the country, his love for the people, what he’s going to do to help them solve everyday problems. And Hillary Clinton, unfortunately, is going lower and lower. They’re going totally negative. People don’t like that. Female voters especially don’t like that. They feel like they deserve and should be respected, Chris, to have a substantive conversation. So this is a contrast of two campaigns particularly in these closing arguments. Hillary Clinton and even the president and vice president of the United States are talking about Donald Trump and Donald Trump is talking about the American people. I think that’s the difference.
CUOMO: I hear him doing two things, bashing Clinton about the e-mails, bashing Obamacare, and both of those are resonant. I also hear him channeling someone who I think I know. I want to play this sound bite. I know you’re hearing this plenty this morning. Let’s play Donald Trump talking to himself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It’s feeling like it already, isn’t it? This — we’ve got to be nice and cool. Nice and cool. Stay on point, Donald. Stay on point. No side tracks, Donald. Nice and easy. Nice. Because I’ve been watching Hillary the last few days. She’s totally unhinged. We don’t want any of that. She has become unhinged.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: You know what the giveaway was, he does not refer to himself as Donald. He says Trump. Is he channeling you? Is that the advice you’re giving him?
CONWAY: Oh, look I think Donald Trump does his best when he’s talking about issues, and when people get to see the Donald Trump that we know, who’s incredibly gracious, really funny, and he is doing this for all the right reasons. I mean, I think people will look back at this campaign, particularly after he wins on Tuesday, Chris, and they’ll say we totally missed how much America just appreciated, and I here at these rallies, it makes me very emotional, how much America appreciated the fact that he and his family made enormous sacrifices to run for president. Americans have told pollsters for decades we want somebody who is not of the political system. We want a true outsider. Not just to disrupt the place but to be the voice of the forgotten man, forgotten woman. He didn’t need the money, the fame, the power, the prestige, the position, he has all of that. And he and his family, who are just amazing, have sacrificed enormously and I think it just gives him a connected issue with people. People talk about the new ABC News/”Washington Post” poll. The most telling statistic in the last week in that poll is the question, which candidate Clinton or Trump, cares more about people like you? You know, they’re tied on that. President Obama was beating Mitt Romney by like 82 percent to 15 percent on that measure. It’s not a measure that Republican candidates usually do well on and yet Trump and Clinton are tied on that sort of compassion/empathy/connected tissue measures.
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