Exclusive interview with Donald Trump's new campaign manager

22 August 2016

Donald Trump versus Hilary Clinton is on. It’s shaping up to be the most vicious, divisive election in living memory. Continuing to stoke outrage and controversy and behind in the polls Matt Frei asks if Donald Trump can really make it all the way to the White House. In effort to stop what appears to be a faltering campaign and head of the much anticipated presidential TV debates next month, Trump has shaken up his campaign team.  

 

Interview with Trump’s newly appointed Campaign Manager, Kellyanne Conway:

Talks of the hidden Trump vote and comparisons to Brexit.

KC        Our internal polling is proprietary and confidential so I won’t discuss it… Two things I’ll tell you about polling that are very unique to Donald Trump. One is that Donald Trump performs consistently better in online polling where a human being is not talking to another human being about what he or she may do in elections.

Matt      Why is that?

KC        It’s because it’s become socially desirable especially if you’re a college education person in the USA to say that you’re against Donald Trump… The hidden Trump vote in this country is a very significant proposition…

Matt      In Britain we had a vote recently about Europe and the media, the pollsters got it spectacularly wrong – Brexit won.  Do you think something similar could happen here?

KC        Yes, everybody who was looking at this calmly and objectively thinks that … I think if the elites - what I call the wrist-flickers - are just dismissing that – oh Donald Trump can never be president, oh Brexit is so - it’s just for these unwashed rubes, these hillbillies with no teeth and long hair. I mean that’s just unfair.”  

…reveals a secret “undercover Trump vote” project / poll the campaign is doing internally

KC        it’s a project we’re doing internally, I call it the “undercover Trump voter”, but its real and I think that if you go around this country and you talk to people you see it’s real as well.

 

Says distrust of Hilary outweighs the distaste for Trump

KC        …..Distrust of her far outweighs distaste for him right now. Can it reach parity perhaps but it’s – there’s such a significant delta that you don’t see if you just look at unfavourable numbers or ballot test numbers.  You really have to push people as to why let them open up in open end fashion. What was the most negative thing you could say about Donald Trump, what’s the most negative feeling you have about Hillary Clinton?

On Hilary

KC      “….her husband’s problem was that he had casual relationships with other women. Hillary’s problem is she has a casual relationship with the truth”

 

Says Trump will forgive the UK for the petition calling for him to be banned and says the special relationship will be improved

KC      “I don’t know if it was publicity so much as a failed attempt to try and exclude someone from entering your country but he’ll forgive you once he’s president and he’ll work with the UK the way he’ll work with allies around the globe”.

 

Trump’s Campaign accounts:

Overall Trump raised $91 million during the primary season of the campaign, and of that he himself contributed $47 million, just half.

When you examine the expenses in detail and you discover a few things that you perhaps hadn’t expected:

• The Trump plane, $5.1 million, the recipient TAG Air inc.  And guess who owns TAG Air.  Donald Trump owns TAG Air.
• £420,000 for the use of Mar A Lago, his luxury resort in southern Florida. 
• Half a million dollars for Trump Towers, the campaign headquarters.

These products and services add up to just over six million dollars, but rises to just under $11 million if you include the money he has spent on hats and t-shirts from Ace Specialties, a company owned by a board member of son Eric Trump’s charitable foundation.

To sum it up, the candidate, Donald J Trump, who prides himself on funding his own campaign, has also been sending money back to his own coffers to the tune of $11 million during the campaign.  Now that’s the art of the deal.

 

Kenneth Gross, Campaign finance attorney

Matt      A lot of the companies that he is paying like, a plane, the T shirts, the posters, these are companies owned by him.

Ken       Yeah, isn’t that nice. We’ve never seen this before. 

Matt      Is that a problem, is that a conflict of interest – do people mind. 

Ken       I think it might be politically, people might say you know what’s up with that?  But legally it’s fine.

 

Experts continue to predict the Trump insurgency is doomed to crash and burn – but then they said the same about Brexit. A Trump America could well be a reality.

 

President Trump: Can He Really Win? Tuesday 23rd August, 9pm, Channel 4

Producer/Director: Richard Sander & Dimitri Collingridge

Executive Producer: Chris Shaw 

Production Co: ITN Productions