Apr 25, 2016 4 min read

They tell us that Donald Trump is turning over a new leaf.

That since he’s well on the road to his nomination, he’s going to mix a little Dr. Jekyll with his Mr. Hyde.

He’s hired some skilled campaign vets to help him temper his, well, his temper, so that he can show that he can become more presidential.

We’ve all known that since Trump descended down his Trump Tower escalator 314 days (or should I say 27,129,600, no 601, no, 602 long seconds ago), he’s confounded his critics, who’ve claimed he’s unfit for the presidency.

Since he has a new crop of political strategists, there’s been talk about Trump being less Trump-like.

I don’t buy that for one minute.

In fact, last Tuesday night, after it was clear that Trump had whooped John Kasich and Ted Cruz in the New York primary election, I even heard a couple of pundits claim he’s now ready to show the American voter that he’s primed for the presidency.

Of course, those kinds of predictions aren’t anything new.

Dissecting Mr. Trump’s motives and methods has become something of a cottage industry since last June.

(Heck! I’ll even admit that I once called “The Donald” nothing more than a carnival barker, until I realized that was an insult to carnival barkers).

Where were we?

Oh, my ears perked-up when I heard one pundit say that during Trump’s brief celebratory speech after his New York victory, he didn’t call Ted Cruz “Lyin’ Ted.”

Instead, he simply called him “Senator Cruz.”

The new and improved Donald Trump, they claimed, was starting to emerge. They’d noticed that he hadn’t appeared as frequently on news shows. And that he’d refrained from making malicious posts on Twitter.

I still had my doubts.

So on Wednesday afternoon, I decided to do something I hadn’t done in months. I glued myself to my computer so that I could watch the live (internet) feed of an entire Donald Trump speech.

There he was, standing at the head of an uproariously packed house in Indianapolis.

Within minutes, he started spraying “Lyin’ Teds” all over the room – and to the amusement of his adoring devotees.

By the time he finished, he called Ted Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” four times; referred to Cruz’ “lies” twice; called Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary” four times, and with each mention, he was greeted with wild applause.

There was nothing measured about his hour long speech.

If his campaign operatives had counseled him to tone down his rhetoric, he must’ve ignored them.

In fact, his rambling message contained all of the same Trump lines we’ve all seen, but, perhaps, not loved in the past.

“We’re going to build a wall. It’s going to be a beautiful wall, and Mexico is going to pay for it.” – Applause!

Check.

“I love waterboarding.” – Applause!

Check.

He pushed all of the right buttons. He even managed to push a few new ones.

“Do we hate the media.? – Vigorous applause!

Check.

I did note that he added a new line that doesn’t quite check out.

When he talked about his New York win, he claimed, “The vote was incredible. And its New York. The place that knows me best gives us that kind of whatever. They know me.”

I deferred to the actual vote totals to “fact-check” that.

As it turns out, Trump had won more votes than his competitors in every single precinct in the state of New York, except one.

That precinct is Manhattan, which happens to be where Trump lives. Ironically, to use his phrase, “The place that knows me (him) best.”

John Kasich got nearly a thousand more votes that Trump did there. And hardly anybody in Manhattan knows Kasich “best.”

Sure, Trump has new handlers, who might want him to fine-tune his message, and to resist making stuff up on the fly.

There’s the narrative among some political insiders that with the increased likelihood that he’ll win the nomination, he’s bound to show some degree of political maturity.

Don’t hold your breath.

Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him