Throughout the last year, former President Donald J. Trump’s rhetoric has been in line with his longstanding impulses. He’s aired his lies about the 2020 election, vowed to be people’s “retribution” if he wins a second term and described undocumented immigrants as “poisoning the blood of our country,” an echo of language used by fascists like Adolf Hitler.
Payback and demonizing immigrants have been themes of Mr. Trump’s political campaigns for years. But in his Fox News town-hall event Wednesday in Iowa, Mr. Trump began to try to clean up those remarks.
He insisted that he wouldn’t have time for retribution, although he began by saying that some suggested it was not a bad idea because of the investigations into him. He offered a muted statement agreeing that political violence, which he has often been accused of stoking, shouldn’t exist.
Most notably, he did not repeat his lies that the 2020 election he lost was “rigged.” Previously, he had been confronted by the moderators about his election-fraud claims. Bret Baier, one of the moderators, challenged Mr. Trump in an interview in June on the matter, using Mr. Trump’s past comments related to one of the criminal investigations he’s facing.
Mr. Trump also continued to try to avoid being pinned down on where he stands on abortion bans, as he has for months, saying Republicans needed to win elections. Yet he also boasted about being the reason the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, alluding to his appointments on the court. Democrats promptly circulated those remarks.
But after the town-hall event, Mr. Trump resumed his more incendiary comments on his Truth Social website. As he went voluntarily to a civil court appearance in Manhattan for the fraud trial against him and his company on Thursday, the morning after the town hall, he declared, “Election interference!”
That Mr. Trump presented a more restrained front on air than he usually does nonetheless underscores why he has been such a frustrating opponent for rivals in both parties over the years. He says different things about the same issue, sometimes in the same sentence, allowing people to hear what they want.
And when his back is against the wall, he has shown an ability to be more disciplined than his public comments or social media commentary suggest.
It remains to be seen if he will act similarly in future interviews as he and his advisers look past the primary and focus on the general election — all while he faces the prospect of being on trial in criminal courts in four jurisdictions with cases against him.
But Mr. Trump has a long history of trying to modulate past statements and then reverting back to the more extreme behavior, on almost every occasion.
