Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has cancelled or delayed major upcoming campaign events in Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon.
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A Trump campaign source said the campaign made a decision to push back Trump’s immigration speech as it is still fine-tuning its immigration policy and the speech’s language.
Trump appeared on Fox News Monday morning to set the record straight.
The announcement comes as a major immigration speech by Trump planned for Thursday in Colorado has also been called off, along with an August 31 rally and fundraiser in Portland. The paper writes that, while Trump repeatedly called for expelling the entire undocumented population in interviews and on the campaign trail, the written immigration plan that Trump released last August did not actually contain any mention of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants.
There have been previous signs that Trump might be moderating his stance on deportations.
At last month’s GOP convention, the Republican National Committee’s director of Hispanic communications, Helen Aguirre Ferre, told reporters at a Spanish-language briefing that Trump had already said he “will not do massive deportations” – despite the fact that Trump had never said so publicly. “We want to do it in a very humane manner”.
On Sunday, nascent campaign manager Kellyanne Conaway disputed the reports by saying Trump’s position has not changed.
In recent weeks, Trump has delivered several carefully scripted speeches as his team attempts to regain some semblance of control in the race following weeks of plummeting poll numbers.
“It’s that we need a, quote, fair and humane way of dealing with what is estimated to be about 11 million illegal immigrants in this country”, said Conway, who also took part in the meeting.
On Monday afternoon, the Trump campaign abruptly canceled the speech it had planned for Thursday, without providing an immediate reason. “Mr. Trump said nothing today that he hasn’t said many times before, including in his convention speech”, rapid response director Steven Cheung said after the meeting.
If true, it would mark a sharp reversal for a candidate who launched his campaign for the presidency with a vow to build a giant wall on Mexico’s border, while disparaging illegal immigrants from Mexico as criminals and rapists.
Clinton, meanwhile, is spending the next three days fundraising across California.
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But Clinton’s email scandal continues to haunt her.
