CLEVELAND — Republican pollster Frank Luntz has a message for Donald Trump: hands off the cellphone and stay off Twitter.
“The first thing I would do is take his phone away from him,” Luntz told the South Carolina delegation to the Republican National Convention during a Tuesday morning breakfast when asked what advice he’d give Trump.
“If you are tweeting after midnight, nothing good will come from it.”
Trump’s Twitter usage has redefined campaign messaging, as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee largely relies on the social media network to reach his supporters.
Luntz said he would have difficulty working for Trump because he is “difficult to manage” but framed that as a good thing for the country and his candidacy.
“He is the opposite of Hillary Clinton. She is so scripted; he is out there. She is controlled; he is loose. She won’t talk to the media; he talks to the media too often. There needs to be discipline,” Luntz said.
He added that Trump’s success with his off-the-cuff style means he should eschew a scripted speech despite the warnings of the Republican elite that want him to stay on message.
“Stevie Wonder reads a teleprompter better than she does,” he said of the presumptive Democratic nominee, comparing her to the blind musician.
“I would … have him walk over and say ‘I don’t need to use somebody else’s words, these are my words, from my heart, from my soul, why I am running and what I would do as president. For 25 years she’s been running as president and she needs a teleprompter. I don’t,’” Luntz added.