Trump will be Trump

New York billionaire Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for president, flew to Scotland on Friday, but his visit had little to do with burnishing his foreign policy credentials. Rather, Trump flew across the pond to inspect his $300 million investment in two golf courses.

Yes, the first-time candidate for office who built his campaign on a clever slogan, “Make America Great Again,” has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on his overseas ventures. He has boasted that he has business interests all over the world.

But $300 million on two golf courses in Scotland?

Any other candidate for president would today suffer the wrath of his supporters for talking out of both sides of his mouth. Not The Donald.

The 13 million-plus voters who made Trump the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee have been totally swayed by his knuckle-dragging antics.

Trump’s racist outbursts, his homophobic comments, his anti-Muslim rants, his disrespect for the physically disabled and his male chauvinism are characteristics that his disciples find appealing. Yes, he’s viewed as a god by many.

And just as you can’t make a silk purse of a sow’s ear, you can’t make a political statesman of a narcissist. Trump is a marketing phenom, as he’ll tell anyone who’ll listen.

Thus, last week’s surprising development in the Trump campaign is antithetical to everything the candidate has espoused.

General election mode

Under pressure from members of his inner circle – his children who are executive officers in the Trump empire – the nontraditional candidate did a very traditional thing: He pivoted from the primary election campaign to the general election.

And in doing so, he kicked to the curb the campaign manager who helped him secure more than the number of delegates needed to win the GOP nomination.

Corey Lewandowski, seen for a long time as Trump’s right-hand man, was fired Monday. The reason given was as traditional as they come.

While praising his former campaign manager for doing a “great job,” Trump contended, “It’s time for a different kind of a campaign.”

“We ran a small, beautiful, well-unified campaign,” Trump said of the primary contests that started off with 17 candidates. “It worked very well in the primaries. I think I’m going to do some of that.” He made the comments in an interview with Fox News.

The pivot to the general election also involves a veteran Republican political operative, Paul Manafort, taking over as campaign manager.

Members of the Republican Party establishment who have been reluctant to embrace their presumptive nominee view the change in the campaign’s strategy as a positive step. They believe Trump is now in a position to switch to general-election mode.

But they also hope for something more: a candidate who doesn’t shoot from the lip and refrains from making statements that tend to alienate large segments of the voting populations.

They’re finding solace in the fact that Trump took Manafort’s advice and used a teleprompter twice in delivering major speeches. It is noteworthy that Trump has mocked politicians who read off teleprompters and went so far as to make fun of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for president.

”If you’re running for president, you should not be allowed to us a teleprompter,” the Republican candidate has said. “No, it’s true. It’s so easy. … you shouldn’t be allowed, because you don’t know what you’re going to get. Look what happened with Obama, where he’s a teleprompter guy. No, it’s true … you don’t want a scripted president. And you don’t want a politically correct president because it … takes too much time.”

But the Republican Party establishment, having heard Trump on the campaign trail for a year, is hoping for a nominee who isn’t inclined to speak first and think later.

For instance, in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in the gay nightclub in Orlando, Trump suggested that profiling all Muslims in America may be necessary given that the shooter was a Muslim who pledged allegiance to ISIS. It is noteworthy that Omar Mateen, who was killed by law enforcement officers after he had shot to death 49 patrons, was an American citizen.

Prominent Republicans, who have avoided using the word “endorse” when talking about their support for Trump, were taken aback by the profiling comment.

Likewise, GOP establishment types have had to listen to Trump rant about a “Mexican” judge presiding over a lawsuit that claims Trump University students were scammed.

Judge Gonzalo Curiel is an American born in Indiana. He is of Mexican ancestry.

Try as they may, Republicans cannot change Trump. The reason he won the primaries is the reason the 13 million voters are sticking with him: He is what he is.

Thus, he’s been able to get away with things that would spell disaster for others.

Here’s one that should become an issue for Clinton and the Democrats as the fall campaign goes into high gear.

Trump has used about $6 million in campaign money to pay his own companies and family members.

According to the Associated Press, the Republican’s campaign made a $423,000 payment in May to Mar-a-Lago, the private club in Florida that serves as Trump’s vacation home. The campaign also bought enough Trump-branded bottled water to fill a bathtub.

The biggest payment to a Trump company was $4.6 million to TAG Air, the holding company of his airplanes.

His campaign headquarters is at Trump Tower in New York. According to the wire service, the campaign paid about $520,000 in rent and utilities to Trump Tower Commercial LLC and to Trump Corporation. For events, he often uses his own properties. The campaign paid out $26,000 in January to rent a facility at Trump National Doral, his golf course in Miami. He’d held an event in the gold-accented ballroom there in late October. The campaign spent another $11,000 on Trump’s hotel in Chicago.

Even refreshments have a Trump tie.

About $5,000 from the campaign went to Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing LLC, which offers Virginia wines bearing the bold letters of Trump.

Son Eric Trump also factors into another large Trump campaign expense.

The campaign has paid about $4.7 million for hats and T-shirts purchased from Ace Specialties. That company is owned by a board member of Eric Trump’s charitable foundation.