Keller @ Large: Meet The New Trump
BOSTON (CBS) - "This country has to get together," Donald Trump has taken to saying lately as he has pulled ever closer to the GOP presidential nomination.
Until now, we've mostly seen Trump the divider and inciter. But on Monday Trump the unifier came to Washington to make the rounds of the establishment, chatting up the Washington Post editorial board, huddling with a handful of GOP congressmen and activists like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and telling the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) convention he didn't really mean it when he said he was "neutral" toward the embattled Jewish state.
Trump's day of reconciliation came as his critics turned up the heat.
Ted Cruz played off the recent rash of stories about violence at Trump events by admonishing him to "stop going to the gutter. Politics should be about bringing us together, about uniting us."
Hillary Clinton exploited fear generated by Trump's vague, often-shifting foreign policy remarks by telling the AIPAC crowd that "we need steady hands, not a president that says he's neutral on Monday, pro-Israel on Tuesday and who-knows-what on Wednesday, because everything's negotiable." (Take that, Mr. Art of the Deal!)
And in a sign that Democrats are seeking unity as well, Sen. Elizabeth Warren stepped up her recent attacks on Trump, tweeting in part: "Why is it that Donald Trump can call himself the 'unity' candidate while basing his campaign on racism, sexism, xenophobia & hatred?"
Asked about Warren's fusillade, the "old" Trump briefly reappeared: "Who's that, the indian? You mean the indian?"