SALENA ZITO INTERVIEWS DONALD TRUMP: ‘It really is all about hope.’ “Two years and a handful of days earlier, I interviewed then-candidate Trump in Pittsburgh ahead of a natural gas convention where he was the keynote speaker. It was at a time when most pollsters and pundits showed him unable to close the deal with voters to beat Hillary Clinton. His demeanor that day isn’t much different than it was last Wednesday. He appears to be still more comfortable chatting or sharing jokes with the service workers and police officers backstage than he is with the elite he grew up with.”