Conservative Pundit Pumps the Brakes on a ‘Changed’ Donald Trump After Shooting: ‘I Don’t Know That He Knows How’
CNN’s Jonah Goldberg pushed back on the narrative that former President Donald Trump will be a changed man after he was nearly assassinated on Saturday.
Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump was shot in the ear before being rushed by Secret Service agents. Trump emerged from the stage, raised a fist, and told rally attendees, “Fight.”
One person was killed and two others were wounded. The motive of the gunman, who was killed by Secret Service agents, remains unclear.
In the wake of the shooting, some have claimed that Trump – a prolific purveyor of violent political rhetoric over the years, has been changed by the near-death experience.
On Monday, Trump appeared at the opening night of the Republican National Convention, which officially nominated him hours earlier. Wearing a bandage on his right ear, he received raucous applause. He will address the convention on Thursday.
During a panel discussion about Trump’s appearance, Goldberg addressed comments by CNN commentator and Republican strategist Scott Jennings, who floated the possibility that Trump may change after the shooting. While Goldberg did not entirely rule it out, he explained his skepticism.
“I predicted Donald Trump’s presidency would end badly because character is destiny,” he said. “I’ve been saying how expecting Donald Trump to pivot to being presidential is like Waiting for Godot. Just not going to happen. But I want to give due credit to Scott’s point that getting shot at can change a person. So we’ll see. My one source of skepticism – other than the fact that 78-year-olds, even when they go through something dramatic don’t tend to change their fundamental natures too much. But it’s possible.”
Goldberg then laid out what’s more likely to happen:
I don’t know that he knows how. I don’t know that he knows the language of being a conciliator for more than five minutes. And the idea that he is going to not go back to calling his opponents vermin and Marxists and fascists and communists and all that kind of stuff – that’s the language he’s learned how to speak in. And I don’t know that can get a Berlitz phrasebook and get up to speed on how to be like a middle-of-the-road guy.
Watch above via CNN.
