how does he tactfully tap into the base and hold conventional republicans, if they still exist inside the gop, together? let s take these in quick succession. so you have the reboot on putin and crimea. i mean, ukraine. that s because he did not expect the blowback he got from senior members of the party, especially in the senate. they started raking him over the coals for something that was absolutely an asinine position to take, that this was some territorial dispute between russia and ukraine. he was getting a big clapback, and he has to close that up, tighten it up and fix it. that s what the piers morgan interview was about, was trying to fix that. then you look at the relationship between him and trump. yeah, he went out and did a little pity pat.