NY Times Ed. Board: Trump's “Makeover Efforts” Can't Obscure “His Unfitness For The Presidency”

The New York Times editorial board called out Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's “makeover efforts” at rebranding as presidential, saying they “cannot obscure his brutish agenda” or “his unfitness for the presidency.”

After Trump's campaign chief Paul Manafort told members of the Republican National Committee (RNC) that Trump’s “image is going to change,” several media figures criticized the move as a sham reinvention, noting “it is important to remember” his myriad insults and extreme rhetoric. Other media outlets continued to give Trump misplaced credit for his supposed reinvention as “presidential.”

On April 26, the Times editorial board asserted that despite Manafort's statement that Trump is “evolving,” the candidate already “has reverted to bad habits...telling lies” and saying “that he hasn’t forgotten or doesn’t regret what he said about Mexicans and Muslims.” The board also reported that Trump ally Roger Stone said “the presidency 'is show business' to Mr. Trump”:

Mr. Trump has hired a Henry Higgins to work on his comportment. Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s new campaign chief and an old-guard Republican strategist, has eclipsed the abrasive Corey Lewandowski and his nonnegotiable “Let Trump Be Trump” approach. Mr. Manafort’s ambition is to turn this Eliza Doolittle into a candidate more acceptable to decent society, in time for the general election.

[...]

But Mr. Trump has reverted to bad habits. He’s still telling lies, and earned four Pinocchios last week for saying that ISIS is “making a fortune” on Libyan oil the terrorist group doesn’t control. On the trail last week, he showed crowds that he hasn’t forgotten or doesn’t regret what he said about Mexicans and Muslims. “I sort of don’t like toning it down,” he said in Connecticut. “Isn’t it nice that I’m not one of these teleprompter guys?”

Mr. Trump knows that to do well in Tuesday’s primaries he still needs those “motivated voters” who want him to say what other politicians won’t. Yet the Trump on the stump is the true man. However copiously applied, cosmetics cannot obscure his brutish agenda, nor the narcissism, capriciousness and most of all, the inexperience paired with intellectual laziness that would make him a disastrous president.

[...]

Whatever persona or good manners Mr. Trump chooses to display from now on, he can’t hide his unfitness for the presidency.