On last night's Anderson Cooper 360, Ana Navarro was asked about the Trump campaign's "softening" on immigration. Her perspective on the inner workings of the campaign apparatus is really insightful. She's clearly worked with campaigns and knows enough about them to be able to read what's actually going on.
Her "admiration" for Kellyanne Conway aside, Navarro recognizes that Conway has an impossible job ahead of her -- keeping this unhinged candidate on track.
Transcript via CNN, clip is of the beginning and end of the segment. Full transcript at the link - emphasis added:
NAVARRO: ... look, since day one this immigration issue, the theme of build a wall has been the pillar on which he has built his campaign. We are now two and a half months out from Election Day. We are about a month and a half out from absentee ballots going out in the state with a lot of Latinos like Florida, and it is up until now that he's going to issue an immigration policy speech and he can even issue it because he's not even quite sure what he's going to say.
You know what I get the sense of when I hear Kellyanne Conway, who I have great respect for and like very much, is that she's got this imaginary candidate in her head, right? She says we're going to talk about issues. We're not going to talk about personalities. It's been Donald Trump who has made it a personality contest. She says we're not going to -- we're going to talk about issues, we're not going to hurl personal insults. It's been Donald Trump whose hurled personal insults at absolutely everybody. So, I have a hard time reconciling what Kellyanne is saying ...
COOPER: Right.
NAVARRO: ... and her imaginary candidate and the Donald Trump that we have seen for the last 16 months.
....
COOPER: Back with us is Jeffrey Lord, Trump supporter, joining us also, Clinton supporter Maria Cardona and GOP strategist, Ana Navarro.
So, Ana, first of all, do you -- I mean, do you think this is a change in policy because it certainly sounds like it. He's no longer talking about 11 million -- all 11 million got to leave and the good ones come back. And what about Hispanics? He currently has what, like 26 percent to Hillary Clinton's 50 percent. Do you think this can actually help him?
ANA NAVARRO, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: That -- I don't know what it is we're hearing because frankly we've heard very little from him on the issue.
He was supposed to give a policy speech on Thursday, he's now pushed it back to a -- to be determined date. I think what you are watching is a testing of the temperature of the water. They're putting in one little toe at a time. And what you are seeing is a very positive influence from Kellyanne Conway who knows this issue, knows that the way he have handled this issue is a political loser, not only for Donald Trump, but also for the Republican Party. And she has been doing her very good job of babysitting this bull in the China shop that she inherited.
But I have a very hard time reacting to Donald Trump's policy when we haven't heard him articulate it. What we have heard is, you know, I think balloons -- trial balloons being thrown by Kellyanne and by other members of the folks (ph). When we've hear him say it, then we can react to it....But I also will tell you, Anderson, it's been 15 months and, you know, this isn't like that movie "Men in Black" with Will Smith, where they have that little (inaudible) where you erase the memory, you press it then you erase the memory. You know, Latinos remember, immigrants remember, all of Americans remember. This man has based his campaign on bashing immigrants, on bashing Hispanics for 15 months. No, we're not going to get election time amnesia.
I feel bad for Ana Navarro -- her career has been destroyed by Trump more than anyone's. Though given her career was "Hispanic Republican Outreach," maybe she should have seen the light sooner.
