Sean Hannity is a big Donald Trump fan. Maybe even the biggest. And the Fox News host's town halls with Trump -- Wednesday night's will be the third in eight days -- make that abundantly clear.
And yet, even Hannity seems to get the fact that Trump needs to set aside things like his feuds with a judge of Mexican heritage and a Gold Star family whose son was killed in Iraq.
Trump, however, does not get this.
To close out his town hall with Trump on Tuesday night, Hannity tried to do the Republican presidential nominee a favor. He pointed to people who like Trump but wish he would be more disciplined.
"They say, 'Please, I love Mr. Trump, but tell him to be quiet about Judge [Gonzalo] Curiel, about the media, about Mr. [Khizr] Khan, and only focus on Hillary and Obama," Hannity said. "Now, my question to you is: We've got less than 80 days to go, are you focused on only those two?"
Curiel, in case folks have forgotten, is the judge hearing the Trump University case who Trump has suggested is inherently biased against him because the judge has Mexican heritage. Khan is the father of a fallen soldier who spoke out against Trump's Muslim immigration ban at the Democratic National Convention. Trump responded to the speech by suggesting Khan's wife, Ghazala, wasn't allowed to speak and by arguing that he, himself, has made sacrifices, too.
Polls have shown that both episodes have alienated the vast, vast majority of Americans. A Washington Post-ABC News poll showed 73 percent of Americans disapproved of Trump's comments on the Khans, while just 12 percent approved. Even six in 10 Republicans disapproved.
The Curiel comments brought similar numbers. A whopping 85 percent of Americans said Trump's comments were at least "inappropriate," per another Post-ABC poll, and 68 percent said they were "racist." Even 71 percent of Republicans said they were inappropriate, and 39 percent said they were racist. In that latter group were many GOP leaders, who took the unusual step of saying publicly that something their presidential nominee said was racist.
On Tuesday, Trump responded to Hannity:
Well, look, I have to be who I am. I think that's why I won the primaries. I think that's why I got more votes in the history of the Republican primary. Nobody's gotten as many votes. I have to be who I am.
But this is now about Hillary Clinton versus myself. And you know, I win. I win. In life, I win. I want to win. I have a very winning temperament, okay? I know how to win. And we are going to win. And we're going to make America great again. You know, we are going to make America great again. That's what it's all about.
Got it?
Yes, Trump said the race "is now about Hillary Clinton and myself," but otherwise he gave no indication that he's done any real soul-searching or strategizing around the Curiel and Khan matters. And perhaps that shouldn't be surprising.
But this is a guy who, in a speech just last week, expressed "regret" for occasionally saying "the wrong thing" and hurting people. It seemed almost like it was a quasi-apology for the Khan and Curiel episodes -- or at least a recognition that such things weren't helping.
And if there are two things Trump should regret, they are Curiel and Khan. It's rare you see three-quarters or more of Americans agreeing on much of anything, and yet that many Americans agreed Trump was wrong in both instances. Even if you set aside the idea that Trump's comments were either racist or beyond the pale when it comes to the parents of a fallen soldier, politically it's a no-brainer.
Hannity gave Trump a chance to expound on that "regret" comment, and Trump basically shrugged it off, saying he is who he is.
Trump, of course, had already shown this week that he's perfectly willing to engage in random feuds with cable news hosts and former congressmen, such as New York Democrat Anthony Weiner. He's given no real reason to believe he wouldn't repeat what he said previously about people like Curiel and Khan.
It's still not clear what Trump truly regrets -- if he regrets anything at all.