The entire chain of events that had started with the Paris attack would prove to be a perfect encapsulation of Trump’s candidacy. It began with provocative but deliberately imprecise language that drew people in, then the refusal to claim ownership of his own words while never quite clarifying his views, and then the taking advantage of a relatively small media error—in this case, my imprecise choice of words—to portray himself as the victim of the feeding frenzy he had unleashed. Much as he had during his divorces, bankruptcies, and public feuds, Trump drove days of news based only on his
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