CLEVELAND — Following GOP nominee Donald Trump’s speech at the Republican convention, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort pushed back against critics of the speech, telling PJM it had a “truth-telling tone.”
PJM asked Manafort for his response to CNN referring to Trump’s speech, which focused heavily on crime, illegal immigration, terrorism and “law and order,” as “doom and gloom” on Thursday evening.
“It was a truth-telling tone. He said he was not going to lie. He was going to tell the truth about what is really going on in America. He was not going to hide behind political convention wisdom, and that’s what he did. But at the end of the speech when he talked about his vision, he very clearly set a more positive tone,” he said at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.
A reporter from the satire website The Daily Current asked Manafort to name his favorite line from the speech.
“I enjoyed the whole speech. I didn’t have any favorite lines,” he replied.
“Were you excited that, unlike the debates, tonight he did not talk about the size of his hands or his penis?” the Daily Current reporter said, referring to a March primary debate in which Trump said, “Look at those hands, are they small hands? And, [Marco Rubio] referred to my hands — ‘if they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee.”
“I still don’t know what you said,” Manafort answered.
“Are you happy he didn’t talk about his penis tonight?” she repeated before Manafort swatted her away.
PJM asked Manafort if Trump did enough to win over undecided independent voters with his speech.
“I thought Trump did a great job putting his vision out there for America,” Manafort said.
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