WHAA..? – AT 1:52 P.M. ET: Donald Trump is trying to make up for a blunder. From the Santa Fe New Mexican:
In a stunning reversal of rhetoric and tone, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Thursday said he respects New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and wants her endorsement. Trump’s comments in a phone interview with The New Mexican came just days after he castigated Martinez in front of 8,000 people in Albuquerque, saying her job performance was so poor that he might have to run for governor of New Mexico.
Trump’s criticisms of Martinez turned to praise Thursday, signs of their monthslong war thawing to a détente.
“I’d like to have it,” Trump said in a phone interview when asked if he wanted Martinez’s support. “I respect her. I have always liked her.”
Trump’s attack on Martinez, the nation’s only Latina governor, became a national story, both because he denigrated the chairwoman of the Republican Governors Association and because Martinez is part of demographic groups with which Trump support is especially weak — women and Hispanics.
Martinez, in turn, has been critical of Trump. She publicly chided him for making sweeping, negative comments about Mexican immigrants. Later, while she was at a private fundraising event for Republican governors at the Florida home of billionaire David Koch, Martinez slammed Trump for his campaign promise to build a wall on the Mexican border.
Trump phoned a reporter for The New Mexican after learning from his press staff that Martinez earlier in the day had maintained her pattern of keeping open the possibility of endorsing Trump but again declined to do so.
COMMENT: There really is a limit to how many of these antics Trump can pull. I'm being harsh on him because he deserves it. His true believers may accept anything, but Trump's job now, as we've noted earlier, is to get the support of the great American middle. Tactics more familiar to New York real estate than presidential politics won't cut it. You can't destroy a governor's reputation one day, then say how much you like her the next. Even Hillary couldn't get away with such a Hillaryism.
June 4, 2016 |