There's no such thing as nice Trump

I spoke the other day to a Republican member of Congress who was holding out hope that Trump would change. This member, who would not allow me to use his name, was in the same position as many of his colleagues: He had endorsed Trump, but considered his comments about Curiel “indefensible.”

The congressman predicted Trump would heed the firestorm around the comments. It would, he said, prove to be a crucial learning experience for Trump: “He just has to touch the hot stove,” he said optimistically.

The Republicans who oppose Trump are rather bearish on this prospect. To them, the judge controversy proved conclusively that there will be no new-and-improved general-election Trump, and showed they were right all along about his divisive tendencies.

“I am getting I-told-you-so delivered to my house by the truckload every day,” Rick Wilson, the Florida Republican consultant who has vocally opposed Trump from the beginning, told me. “I am eating up the I-told-you-so like a fat kid eats cake.”