AMY WALTER

The Donald Trump call in the president of Taiwan and of itself, as Henry Kissinger said, hasn't created some tremendous trouble in China. But what we don't know is whether this is just posturing or whether this is a policy change.

The media loves to spend a lot of time talking about itself and do a lot of navel-gazing, which the general public isn't quite that interested in. They aren't really particularly concerned with whether our feelings are hurt or the things that we complain about. They have their own lives and their own jobs that are difficult as well. I think where the media has gotten itself in trouble is the sense that they're much more interested in things like parsing words and getting into fights about little minutia, as opposed to stepping back and seeing what the big picture is.

The difference there is that the [Donald] Trump number on change is so much larger than the lead that the other two have in their lanes. And that's going to be the challenge for those other two going forward. The other challenge for Marco Rubio, and this assumption that you're just going to get all those Bush and Kasich voters.

It's never a good time, when you're the president of the United States and your own party is finding lots of different ways to distance themselves from you.

Hillary Clinton is got to make the case for herself that nobody else can make, and for voters to see somebody who looks more three-dimensional, that's not simply a caricature that had been sort of a part of the American dialogue for the last 25 years.

Most important, you can have a war room, you can have a war plan, but if your general - in this case, it's Donald Trump - isn't following the plan and is tweeting or is going and giving interviews that contradict the plan, then none of this really matters.

Donald Trump is an unconventional president doing unconventional things. And the Trump phone call with the president of Taiwan is not something that the traditional establishment would see as a good idea to do, especially when there's not necessarily a policy behind it.

Trump campaigned as somebody who was very skeptical of the multinational deals. He was supportive of Brexit. He was very skeptical of NATO. So what we saw of President Trump in Europe was what we saw of President Trump as a candidate.

This is a Donald Trump's Cabinet, especially when you look at domestic social policy or domestic policy in general, this is a very conservative group of people that he's put around him, despite the fact that he's bringing all kinds of people into Trump Tower.

The only problem with the "children of Reagan" line is it reminds you that Marco Rubio is the young candidate.

It is very difficult to deliver nuance in a campaign. Campaigns are about contrasts.

It was very clear, even from long before Donald Trump got in this race, when he would talk to Republicans, the number-one concern they had about Jeb Bush was whether he was too rusty for this, and whether he was going to be strong enough to stand up to Hillary Clinton.

I think you still have a problem here when you're going and you're looking not just that Trump is winning, but he's winning in a broad swath of voters. It's not just that he's got this one lane, oh, he only wins when there's low turnout, he only wins when conservatives, he only wins in these kinds of states. He wins enough across a broad array.

If you're Chris Christie, who is governor of New Jersey, a state that obviously was impacted by 9/11, this gives you an opportunity to talk about how, as governor, you had to deal with terrorism and security issues.

This is a Donald Trump's Cabinet, especially when you look at domestic social policy or domestic policy in general, this is a very conservative group of people that he's put around him, despite the fact that he's bringing all kinds of people into Trump Tower.

Lots of people coming in and out the Trump Tower, not necessarily indicative of what Donald Trump policy is going to be. To have Al Gore one day, and the next day the head of ExxonMobil, what does that - what are you supposed to read into that about his stance on climate change? So, I think, again, it's going to be that the actions that he takes are significant.

Even on Ben Carson, he's not exactly steeped in housing policy, but his statements on the issue have also been very conservative.

Most important, you can have a war room, you can have a war plan, but if your general - in this case, it's Donald Trump - isn't following the plan and is tweeting or is going and giving interviews that contradict the plan, then none of this really matters.

The only problem with the "children of Reagan" line is it reminds you that Marco Rubio is the young candidate.

I still think there's some tension . But it's pretty clear that, when the president made his statements as a candidate, he's following through with those as a president.

The ones who are in the Senate have to have a position.

Trump campaigned as somebody who was very skeptical of the multinational deals. He was supportive of Brexit. He was very skeptical of NATO. So what we saw of President Trump in Europe was what we saw of President Trump as a candidate.

When you look at the people that Donald Trump is actually put around him on his Cabinet, this is a pretty - I would argue a very conservative Cabinet. And whether it's on issues of immigration, his pick for the attorney general, very conservative on that issue.

It's never a good time, when you're the president of the United States and your own party is finding lots of different ways to distance themselves from you.

The media loves to spend a lot of time talking about itself and do a lot of navel-gazing, which the general public isn't quite that interested in. They aren't really particularly concerned with whether our feelings are hurt or the things that we complain about. They have their own lives and their own jobs that are difficult as well. I think where the media has gotten itself in trouble is the sense that they're much more interested in things like parsing words and getting into fights about little minutia, as opposed to stepping back and seeing what the big picture is.

When Jeb Bush came on the shows and couldn't answer questions about Iraq, and when he looked like he was unsteady, it absolutely solidified the concerns that they had had all along about his skills.

The people that Donald Trump is putting around him on the Cabinet suggest that he's putting together a very conservative, almost traditionally conservative Republican group around him.

It doesn't need to be deep and it doesn't need to be a 65-point plan, but just to give some concrete examples of how this economy is going to work for the people that feel right now it's not working for them, and then finally to get to central tension of this campaign. This is a presidential campaign where you have Americans now who want to see change. And Hillary Clinton is the status quo. How can she be both status quo and change?

The real problem with Donald Trump is, if you engage him, it will only make things worse. It's like - it's a little bit what you were taught as a kid to not engage the bully, because they will continue to pick on you.

Donald Trump is an unconventional president doing unconventional things. And the Trump phone call with the president of Taiwan is not something that the traditional establishment would see as a good idea to do, especially when there's not necessarily a policy behind it.

The Donald Trump call in the president of Taiwan and of itself, as Henry Kissinger said, hasn't created some tremendous trouble in China. But what we don't know is whether this is just posturing or whether this is a policy change.

Hillary Clinton is got to make the case for herself that nobody else can make, and for voters to see somebody who looks more three-dimensional, that's not simply a caricature that had been sort of a part of the American dialogue for the last 25 years.

Usually, you do a shakeup because you know that you have a problem or you gaps and you're going to fill those gaps.

The difference there is that the [Donald] Trump number on change is so much larger than the lead that the other two have in their lanes. And that's going to be the challenge for those other two going forward. The other challenge for Marco Rubio, and this assumption that you're just going to get all those Bush and Kasich voters.