Don’t be fooled: There is no ‘new’ Trump on coronavirus (or anything else) – CNN

"Trump's press conference today marks a change in tone and a more disciplined and realistic approach," tweeted Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak. "It will be a good message for the public and he will benefit from it politically. Welcome news."

Um, no.

If there is anything we have learned -- or should have learned -- about Donald Trump over these past five-ish years, it's that that there is no "new" Trump, no version 2.0, no new leaf to turn over. There is just Trump. He has been this same person -- bullying, blaming, convinced of his own brilliance, willing to bend and break facts for his own purposes -- his entire adult life. He may be able to subsume those natural characteristics for a day or even a week. But they will come back out -- sooner rather than later. They always, always do.

We've been down this road before. Like, a lot of times.

Go back to the spring of 2016 when Trump was trying to convince the Republican Party that he could rein in his more base instincts (sand Twitter fingers) and be the sort of presidential nominee they had grown to expect.

"His Tuesday night victory speech at Trump Tower in New York City was brief, relatively subdued, and relatively on-message. The roughly ten-minute speech was a far, far cry from the night in March when he celebrated primary wins by hawking Trump steaks, Trump wine and threw a Trump magazine into the crowd of supporters who had gathered at his lush Mar-a-lago resort in Florida."

Trump then went on a media blitz to sell the new him.

That was more than four years ago.

And yet, when Trump delivered his first address to a bicameral session of Congress in 2017, there was still talk of a new tone.

That was more than three years ago.

"For 30 minutes on Tuesday, President Donald Trump pretended to act like something approximating a normal human in discussing the COVID-19 crisis facing our country. He read some platitudes from a script. He expressed support for basic safety precautions in the face of a contagious virus. While not eliminating them entirely he kept the wishcasting and gaslighting and hyperbolic statements about his self-proclaimed greatness to a minimum."

Yes, that.

And, even within Trump's quasi-presidential performance on Tuesday night, there was evidence that the old Trump -- aka the only Trump -- was lurking right below the surface.

Right.

You can hate that Trump. Or love him. But you cannot reasonably think that there is any other iteration of Trump that is emerging. There is not. Trump is just Trump. Always has been. Always will be.

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Don't be fooled: There is no 'new' Trump on coronavirus (or anything else) - CNN