Story highlights
- GOP still coming to grips with Trump as standard-bearer
- Trump is showing signs of the type of nominee he'll be
Washington (CNN)Donald Trump is still Donald Trump.
For "The Apprentice," Trump was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007.
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Trump appears on the set of "The Celebrity Apprentice" with two of his children -- Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump -- in 2009.
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Trump poses with Miss Universe contestants in 2011. Trump has been executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants since 1996.
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In 2012, Trump announces his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In May 2012, on CNN's "The Situation Room," Trump said that President Barack Obama's birthplace is a matter of opinion. In regards to the President's Hawaiian birth certificate, Trump said "a lot of people do not think it was an authentic certificate."
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Trump speaks in Sarasota, Florida, after accepting the Statesman of the Year Award at the Sarasota GOP dinner in August 2012. It was just before the Republican National Convention in nearby Tampa.
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Trump appears on stage with Nick Jonas and Giuliana Rancic during the 2013 Miss USA pageant.
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On June 16, Trump announces that he is running for President during a speech from Trump Tower in New York. He said he will give up the show "The Apprentice" to run.
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Trump -- flanked by U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz -- speaks during a CNN debate in Miami on March 10. Trump dominated the GOP primaries and emerged as the presumptive nominee in May.
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The Trump family poses for a photo in New York in April.
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Trump speaks during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, on April 28. After Trump won the Indiana primary, his last two competitors dropped out of the GOP race.
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Donald Trump, the Republican Party's presumptive nominee for President, has been in the spotlight for years. From developing real estate to producing and starring in TV shows, see how he's shaped his empire.
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Trump stands with Alfred Eisenpreis, New York's economic development administrator, in 1976 while they look at a sketch of a new 1,400-room renovation project of the Commodore Hotel. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968, Trump worked with his father on developments in Queens and Brooklyn before purchasing or building multiple properties in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Those properties included Trump Tower in New York and Trump Plaza and multiple casinos in Atlantic City.
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Trump was married to Ivana Zelnicek Trump from 1977-1990, when they divorced. They had three children together.
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Trump signs his second book, "Trump: Surviving at the Top," in 1990. Trump has published at least 16 other books, including "The Art of the Deal" and "The America We Deserve."
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Trump dips his second wife, Marla Maples, after the couple married in a private ceremony in New York in December 1993. The couple divorced in 1999.
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An advertisement for the television show "The Apprentice" hangs at Trump Towers in New York in 2004. The show launched in January of that year. In January 2008, the show returned as "Celebrity Apprentice."
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A 12-inch talking Trump doll is on display at a toy store in New York in September 2004.
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Trump attends the U.S. Open tennis tournament with his third wife, Melania Knauss-Trump, and their son, Barron William Trump, in 2006. Trump and Knauss married in 2005. Trump has five children from three marriages.
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Trump wrestles with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at WrestleMania in 2007. Trump has close ties with the WWE and its CEO, Vince McMahon.
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For "The Apprentice," Trump was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007.
Hide Caption
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Trump appears on the set of "The Celebrity Apprentice" with two of his children -- Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump -- in 2009.
Hide Caption
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Trump poses with Miss Universe contestants in 2011. Trump has been executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants since 1996.
Hide Caption
12 of 19
In 2012, Trump announces his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In May 2012, on CNN's "The Situation Room," Trump said that President Barack Obama's birthplace is a matter of opinion. In regards to the President's Hawaiian birth certificate, Trump said "a lot of people do not think it was an authentic certificate."
Hide Caption
13 of 19
Trump speaks in Sarasota, Florida, after accepting the Statesman of the Year Award at the Sarasota GOP dinner in August 2012. It was just before the Republican National Convention in nearby Tampa.
Hide Caption
14 of 19
Trump appears on stage with Nick Jonas and Giuliana Rancic during the 2013 Miss USA pageant.
Hide Caption
15 of 19
On June 16, Trump announces that he is running for President during a speech from Trump Tower in New York. He said he will give up the show "The Apprentice" to run.
Hide Caption
16 of 19
Trump -- flanked by U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz -- speaks during a CNN debate in Miami on March 10. Trump dominated the GOP primaries and emerged as the presumptive nominee in May.
Hide Caption
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The Trump family poses for a photo in New York in April.
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Trump speaks during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, on April 28. After Trump won the Indiana primary, his last two competitors dropped out of the GOP race.
Hide Caption
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Donald Trump, the Republican Party's presumptive nominee for President, has been in the spotlight for years. From developing real estate to producing and starring in TV shows, see how he's shaped his empire.
Hide Caption
1 of 19
Trump stands with Alfred Eisenpreis, New York's economic development administrator, in 1976 while they look at a sketch of a new 1,400-room renovation project of the Commodore Hotel. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968, Trump worked with his father on developments in Queens and Brooklyn before purchasing or building multiple properties in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Those properties included Trump Tower in New York and Trump Plaza and multiple casinos in Atlantic City.
Hide Caption
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Trump was married to Ivana Zelnicek Trump from 1977-1990, when they divorced. They had three children together.
Hide Caption
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Trump signs his second book, "Trump: Surviving at the Top," in 1990. Trump has published at least 16 other books, including "The Art of the Deal" and "The America We Deserve."
Hide Caption
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Trump dips his second wife, Marla Maples, after the couple married in a private ceremony in New York in December 1993. The couple divorced in 1999.
Hide Caption
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An advertisement for the television show "The Apprentice" hangs at Trump Towers in New York in 2004. The show launched in January of that year. In January 2008, the show returned as "Celebrity Apprentice."
Hide Caption
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A 12-inch talking Trump doll is on display at a toy store in New York in September 2004.
Hide Caption
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Trump attends the U.S. Open tennis tournament with his third wife, Melania Knauss-Trump, and their son, Barron William Trump, in 2006. Trump and Knauss married in 2005. Trump has five children from three marriages.
Hide Caption
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Trump wrestles with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at WrestleMania in 2007. Trump has close ties with the WWE and its CEO, Vince McMahon.
Hide Caption
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For "The Apprentice," Trump was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007.
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But a week into his dramatic transition from leading a revolt against the Republican hierarchy to becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, Trump seems caught between two versions of himself.
He's the political bulldozer familiar from the primary season, remorselessly probing the weaknesses of his rivals -- both Republicans and Democrats -- in a constant cycle of confrontation. But he is also becoming a more conventional candidate as he staffs up a vice presidential search and moves from a self-funding financing model for his campaign toward traditional fundraising.
Many Republicans in Washington are still coming to grips with the reality that Trump, who picked up fresh wins Tuesday in Nebraska and West Virginia, will be their standard-bearer in the fall. But as the shock of his sudden dominance of the party wears off, Trump seems to be showing the type of nominee he'll be: someone who maintains the often-outrageous persona that resonated with primary voters while also recognizing the requirements and tests of a general election are different.
"He is only going to be Donald Trump," said Bill Miller, a veteran Texas Republican political consultant. But "can he conditionally change for circumstance? The answer to that is absolutely yes."
Confounding expectations
Trump has spent much of the past week confounding expectations that with the GOP nomination locked up, he will suddenly become more presidential. At times he has behaved much like the unconventional candidate he has always been.
He's blasted Hillary Clinton as an "enabler" of her husband Bill Clinton's affairs, swapped insults with Democratic heroine Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Twitter and said he was "blindsided" when House Speaker Paul Ryan balked on an early endorsement. He said in an Associated Press interview Tuesday he wouldn't be releasing his tax returns -- in line with the practice of past presidential nominees -- because they are being audited and "there's nothing to learn from them." He also signaled a departure from general election orthodoxy in the interview by saying that he would not build a sophisticated data operation to target voters similar to those that helped pave President Barack Obama's path to election victories in 2008 and 2012.
With party unity in tatters, Trump will meet with Ryan Thursday in Washington amid intense pressure for Republicans to avoid a schism that could ease Clinton's path to the White House. The meeting will reflect the reality that Trump is not alone in undergoing a period of transition -- the party he is about to lead is facing a reckoning as well.
Phillip Stutts, a Republican political consultant, said he doesn't think Trump will change his persona but "the lights get even brighter going into the general election. There are 100 million people that will be voting in the general election that did not vote in the primary."
Paul Ryan: I will skip convention if Trump asks 00:54
Indeed, there are some warning signs that Trump may not yet be up to the scrutiny of a general election. He's stumbled through a series of policy discussions in recent days by offering conflicting stands on issues like honoring government debt, raising the minimum wage and tax cuts for the rich.
Trump told The Wall Street Journal in an interview Monday that it was "always possible to change. I always believe in flexibility and remaining flexible."
He was talking specifically about his tax plan, but his comments appeared to reflect his approach to policy as a whole since becoming the presumptive nominee last week.
As he embarks on his quest against Clinton, Trump is also deploying another tactic familiar from his primary run -- the visceral personal attack that belittles or highlights an aspect of his opponent's character or political history that he expands into a fatal flaw.
That approach to branding helped him dispatch "low energy" Jeb Bush, "little" Marco Rubio and other enemies on the Republican debate stage.
Trump: Bill Clinton 'worst abuser' in political history 04:00
Over the last week, Trump has targeted Clinton, trying to eviscerate her with personal attacks that bring up 1990s sex scandals surrounding former president Bill Clinton and tweeting video of the Benghazi attacks to make a case that the likely Democratic nominee has "bad judgment."
But the tactics have the potential to backfire -- given Trump's already troubled standing among women voters -- 73% of whom said in a CNN/ORC poll in March that they had a negative opinion of him.
In the same way, Trump's failure so far to change his positions on building a wall on the southern border and making Mexico pay for it along with plans to deport millions of undocumented immigrants will do little endear him to Latino voters, which complicates the already tough road he has through the electoral map toward the White House.
Trump has so far shrugged off such obvious challenges to his candidacy by arguing he has done well with Latinos and women in the GOP primary -- without acknowledging the work he faces in the next phase of the campaign.
"Donald Trump often speaks about the general as if it will be the same as the primary," said Mary Katharine Ham, a conservative author and CNN commentator on Monday.
'Not the same electorate'
"It is not the same electorate -- it does not respond to the same things," she said on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360." "Donald Trump has changed a lot of rules -- but I don't think he can make the primary and the general the same."
Still, Trump has also adopted a more conventional posture as a candidate, putting in place building blocks for an administration by naming Christie to his new role and announcing on Tuesday that campaign manager Corey Lewandowski would oversee the search for a vice presidential running mate.
And at the risk of alienating supporters who embraced his vows to self-fund his primary campaign, Trump has started the process of courting big GOP donors. This is simply a recognition by the billionaire that he needs hundreds of millions of dollars to meet the challenge from Clinton -- a sum that is beyond even his deep pockets.
Some Republicans appear to have accepted what would once have been unthinkable -- that the former reality star will lead them into the general election.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has endorsed of Trump as the GOP nominee -- though it was hardly ringing. And some GOP lawmakers facing re-election who are loath to alienate Trump supporters have also offered tepid endorsements: Arizona Sen. John McCain, for instance, told CNN the GOP would be foolish to ignore the will of Trump's primary voters.
But Trump's comments on a series of economic issues this week left other Republicans horrified. When he suggested that he would be able to renegotiate U.S. debt, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office, warned on CNN's "The Lead" that he could create economic contagion or "Puerto Rico on global steroids."
Such controversies are one reason why Trump has struggled to coalesce the party into uniting around him.
So far, former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and former GOP nominees McCain and Mitt Romney have said they will not show up to the Cleveland convention to watch Trump being enshrined as nominee.
Others including former candidates Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham have said they will not vote for Trump. And some, such as Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, are following Ryan's line -- that they cannot take the plunge just yet.
"This is not a man who has thought through the issues," Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, who recently met with Romney and is involved in a search for a third party candidate, told CNN's "At This Hour" Monday. "For me, it comes down fundamentally to character and judgment, I just don't think (Trump) has shown the character to be president."
It's that kind of verdict shared fairly widely across the conservative spectrum that has left Trump struggling to consolidate his position in his first week as presumptive Republican nominee. If Trump hadn't rewritten almost every rule in the primary — many more Republicans might be writing him off for the general election.
But there is also a sense that something about Trump might just be different.
"I studied history and history was completely wrong in forecasting anything in this election," said Stutts. "Maybe the cult of Trump can bring people together. But this looks to be an increasingly fractured party right now."
