Tied in Knots

My favorite pastime here lately is to watch the Trump surrogates on the cable news channels wrap themselves up into knots trying to speak for the Trump campaign. At the outset, the moderators of these shows were deferential even polite to the surrogate corps but here lately, the press is catching on. It is a surrogates job to paint your candidate in the best possible light but in Trump’s case, there are so many unanswered questions, the only thing a Trump surrogate is able to do is immediately start to attack Ms. Clinton and her long history in public service. Many, but not all of the moderators are beginning to hold these surrogates accountable and demanding they answer the questions posed to them. Case in point:

I suspect that Trump surrogates are not always getting timely information from the campaign and are left to ad-lib and riff much like their candidate is prone to do. Their talking points are, 1) attack Hillary Clinton and her tenure at the State Department 2) attack Hillary Clinton on the basis of her e-mail scandal 3) attack Hillary Clinton on the basis of alleged, unproved and unsubstantiated corruption at the Clinton Foundation and 4) attack Clinton and the Obama administration on their policies regarding ISIS. Watch carefully when a Trump surrogate is asked a question about anything, they repeat the question in some form then launch directly into one of the aforementioned attacks. Then when they are pressed on specifics, they tie themselves into knots trying to give a coherent answer without sounding completely uninformed. I suspect that in many cases, they know the answers but cannot dare to speak the truth.

In most cases, when an issue comes to a boil, within twenty-four hours campaign manager Kellyanne Conway addresses the issue. Her game plan is clear. First, deflect and attack then when boxed into a corner as she always is, then simply say you’ll have to ask the candidate which she knows is not a possibility since press access to Trump is very limited. If you don’t believe me, click the photo above for confirmation. I, for one will be looking forward to the end of this campaign so these seemingly intelligent, misguided people will get off of my TV screen.

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