Trump: I Coulda Spoken Every Night In Cleveland But Avoided ‘Grandstanding’

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Ohio University Eastern Campus in St. Clairsville, Ohio, Tuesday, June 28, 2016. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
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Donald Trump is not planning to speak all three days of the Republican National Convention, but he wants you to know that such a move would have gotten high ratings.

“What they’ve asked me to do is to speak all three nights. I turned it down,” Trump told the New York Times in an interview published Friday morning, adding that “everybody” wants him to speak more.

“I don’t want people to think I’m grandstanding — which I’m not,” he continued. “But it would get high ratings.”

Trump also indicated that he won’t mix up the convention format very much and that he plans to stay “on message.”

“There’s a lot of sameness in conventions,” he told the Times. “At the same time you don’t necessarily want to reinvent the wheel. You don’t want to make it so different that it’s no longer a convention.”

But he did reject the initial drawings of the stage he will speak on in Cleveland.

“I didn’t like the shape,” he told the Times. “Too straight. Too nothing. Didn’t have the drama.”

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Notable Replies

  1. "I don’t want people to think I’m grandstanding — which I’m not,” he continued. “But it would get high ratings.”

    …but enough about me, let’s talk about what you think about me.

  2. Theatre of the Absurd.

  3. So David Duke is back in a prime time slot.

  4. He might yet. It may come down to Trump speaking, or re-runs of The Apprentice.

  5. Dontcha get it? I’m so humble, I am the humblest person in Cleveland, no, wait, I am the humblest person on the continent. Seriously, People tell me I am the humblest person on earth.

    Plus, my kids told me to shut up for awhile.

    And Ivanka took away my phone, so I can’t tweet anymore.

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