For Republican candidate Donald Trump, laying low certainly involves a lot of cameras.
In the three days since his campaign insisted he’d be staying under the radar in order to prepare for Thursday’s Republican presidential debate, Trump did seven interviews.
“I don’t know how you rehearse from, you know, for a debate. I watched Romney, Mitt Romney. He let us down last time. He rehearsed, and that third debate, it was really catastrophic, I don’t know what happened to him, but I think you have to be yourself,” Trump told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday night.
The media magnet is certainly doing just that: On Sunday, he called into ABC News’ This Week. On Monday, he called into “Fox & Friends” and he spoke with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. On Tuesday, he called into “Morning Joe,” did an interview with Bloomberg Politics, spoke with Breitbart, and finished out the day by chatting with O’Reilly.
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Ahead of the interviews, however, the campaign told NBC News on Saturday that they expected him to be laying low this week and not doing press. They wouldn’t divulge whether the bombastic mogul had hired a debate coach, but said he was taking the preparation seriously.
“Trump will be Trump, and he will do what he has made a career doing which is be straight and clear and articulate,” the spokesman told NBC News, adding “all other politicians do the same thing — hire the big coaches and prepare canned talking points. That’s not what the American people want.” Asked Monday on Fox if he was preparing, Trump said he was — in his own way. “I’m preparing, I’m reading everything, I’m studying everything,” Trump said. “I don’t have pollsters telling me what to say. I mean, a lot of these folks have pollsters and they’re giving them quips and they’re giving them little kills for Trump, ‘go kill him with this line or that line.’ You know they’ve got it memorized. You know, I don’t do that, I don’t believe in that. It’s not me, and it really isn’t them either.” Additional reporting by Katy Tur.
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