Trump softens rhetoric on immigration

WASHINGTON -- Donald Trump defeated 16 rivals in the Republican primaries by being the most anti-immigrant of them all, promising to build a giant wall on the border and deport millions. He labeled opponents such as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio as weak and amnesty-loving, and his extreme rhetoric pushed the entire debate over immigration to the right.

But suddenly, Trump is sounding like some of the people he defeated.

In an appearance on Fox News Channel's "Hannity" show Wednesday, Trump talked about how tough it is to break up families for deportation, suggesting maybe upstanding people who have been in this country for years should be allowed to stay if they pay back taxes and insisting, just as Bush and Rubio repeatedly were forced to do, such actions would not amount to "amnesty."

"Everywhere I go I get the same reaction. They want toughness. They want firmness. They want to obey the law," Trump said. "But they feel that throwing them out as a whole family when they've been here for a long time, it's a tough thing."

As often with Trump, his exact meaning was murky. And it was unclear whether he was unveiling a new stance on immigration or simply trying out some new rhetoric to appeal to a general election audience as he lags Democrat Hillary Clinton in polls 11 weeks before the election.

His new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, insisted Thursday morning on CNN "nothing has changed in terms of the policies."

Yet at a minimum, Trump's new language seemed to reveal an awareness his unyielding stance against immigrants is unlikely to get him to the White House, with Latinos voting in ever-greater numbers in key states.

"He's learned painfully, belatedly, that what stirs up a large part of the Republican primary electorate is not what wins general elections," said John Rowe, a GOP donor and former CEO of Exelon, who is planning to vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson. "You cannot win without women, Asians, Latinos, African-Americans."

In an interview Thursday on ABC, Bush called Trump's positioning "abhorrent," saying: "I can only say that whatever his views are this morning, they might change this afternoon, and they were different than they were last night, and they'll be different tomorrow."

Clinton, speaking on CNN, dismissed Trump's shifting language as "a desperate effort to try to land somewhere that isn't as devastating to his campaign as his comments and his positions have been up until now."

There were signs Trump risked angering some in the enthusiastic hard-core base that pushed him to the nomination in the first place.

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter, who published a book called "In Trump We Trust," reacted with angry tweets to Trump's comments on Fox, including remarking sardonically, "Well, if it's 'hard,' then never mind."

GOP Rep. Steve King of Iowa, a leading immigration hard-liner, said in an interview, "I have some concerns at this point" over Trump's stances and suggested he should clarify.

The upside for Trump was not immediately apparent. Immigrant advocates argued he would gain no ground with Hispanics by giving lip service to limited pro-immigrant measures while still insisting on the need for a border wall and other enforcement measures.

Instead, advocates speculated Trump's goal was not to win over Latinos, but to soften his image among independent voters who might be inclined to support him but are turned off by his harsher stances.

"Look, when you launch your campaign saying Mexican immigrants are rapists, drug dealers and murderers, I don't know there's a lot you can say to recover," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.

Associated Press writers Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and Julie Bykowicz, Julie Pace and Jill Colvin in Washington contributed.