In a lengthy Tuesday interview with the New York Times, Donald Trump repeatedly cast aside some of his provocative past statements.
The president-elect’s phenomenal rise to the White House was characterized in part by his boisterous personality and flair for the theatrical. His off-the-cuff responses to journalist’s questions and impulsive attacks against rivals endeared him to conservative voters who wanted a candidate to “tell it like it is.”
But it could be difficult to make governing compromises with the same level of mud-slinging coming from the Oval Office. Trump struck a far more mellow tone during his interview with the Times. Based on early tweets about the session, by Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Mike Grynbaum, Trump backed off of several extreme policy proposals and harsh insults against political opponents. He even backed off his attacks against the Times earlier in the day.
Here are a few instances of times that Trump drastically changed his tune.
Electoral College
During the 2012 presidential election, Trump called the Electoral College “a disaster for a democracy” and said it had made “a laughingstock out of our nation.”
But after he defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote, Trump tweeted that the Electoral College is “actually genius” because it “brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play.”