Ed Morrissey:
Can Donald Trump be convinced to impose some discipline on his campaign — and himself — now that the general election has begun? NBC News reports that the question has become so urgent that two key allies of Trump have started working on an “intervention” to right the Republican presidential campaign ship. Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, two of Trump’s most loyal surrogates, reportedly will lead the charge:
Key Republicans close to Donald Trump’s orbit are plotting an intervention with the candidate after a disastrous 48 hours led some influential voices in the party to question whether Trump can stay at the top of the Republican ticket without catastrophic consequences for his campaign and the GOP at large.
Republican National Committee head Reince Priebus, former Republican New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich are among the Trump endorsers hoping to talk the real estate mogul into a dramatic reset of his campaign in the coming days, sources tell NBC News.
The group of GOP heavyweights hopes to enlist the help of Trump’s children – who compromise [sic] much of his innermost circle of influential advisers – to aid in the attempt to rescue his candidacy. Trump’s family is considered to have by far the most influence over the candidate’s thinking at what could be a make-or-break moment for his campaign.
This part is especially delicious:
The idea is in its early stages, and there’s no guarantee that Trump’s team would entertain a conversation requiring such comprehensive changes for a candidate who has resisted calls to moderate his tone or reel in his most outlandish political positions.
It’s in its “early stages”? Why? Trump’s erratic campaign style has been evident for months. The problem now is that the race has become binary, all due respect to Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, and there are few other distractions to divert media attention from the mess Trump’s making in the opening week of the general-election campaign.
Still, if an intervention would succeed at all, it would have to include Gingrich and Giuliani, perhaps the only two senior GOP figures that Trump might respect. Even then, NBC’s Chuck Todd and Hallie Jackson note that they have to work through the Trump family to gain their support for the effort.
Gingrich made his concerns public this morning already. He told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Channel that Trump’s behavior is “very self-destructive,” and that Trump needs to stop throwing interceptions and get back to being Joe Montana: