In the wake of a chaotic campaign shakeup, Donald Trump’s newly-minted campaign manager, pollster Kellyanne Conway and Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus hit the Sunday morning news circuit to reassure voters that everything is fine, just fine, within the tumultuous Trump campaign. But despite the duo’s best efforts, questions still remain as to which Trump—the unfiltered political outsider or the muted, teleprompter-reading candidate that has occasionally appeared at rallies in recent days—can be expected to hold sway for the remainder of the campaign.

The already vexing task of divining Trump’s mind is made even more difficult after the events of the past week. Last Wednesday, Trump appointed media firebrand Stephen Bannon as his campaign C.E.O. and elevated Conway, who previously served as an adviser to the billionaire’s campaign, displacing Paul Manafort, who resigned soon afterward. Bannon, who helped create the far-right online outlet Breitbart News, has often encouraged Trump’s brash, unapologetic approach to politics. (Breitbart supported Trump’s repeated attacks on the Gold Star parents of a fallen Muslim soldier, which were condemned by both sides of the aisle, and published a series of hit pieces on Khizr Khan.) Conway, meanwhile, appears to have been influential in Trump’s unprecedented decision Friday to express “regret” for any remarks he had made that caused anyone “personal pain” (though he stopped short of any specifics, leaving the mea culpa open to interpretation). In an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Conway touted his speech as evidence that Trump has changed. Still, when asked if the G.O.P. nominee had specifically apologized to the Khan family and senator John McCain (whose military record Trump previously attacked), Conway said that he expressed his regret “publicly” but not “privately,” indicating that his newfound conscience does have limits.

Other elements of the latest Trump pivot likewise have been bounded by the candidate’s self-destructive impulses and disorganized campaign. On Friday, in a speech to a predominantly white crowd, Trump appealed to African American voters. But the attempt was widely criticized for relying on stereotypes of the African American community, and his frank pitch, “What the hell do you have to lose?” was seen as offensive.

But if Trump’s newfound magnanimity was less than convincing, his efforts at inclusiveness may also backfire with the far-right base that remains the dark heart of his campaign. On Saturday, Trump reportedly met with members of the Hispanic community to discuss a new plan to legalize millions of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, representing a stark shift away from his previously hardline immigration policy. During the primary, Trump promised that he would build a wall along the Mexican border and in an interview with MSNBC’s Morning Joe, discussed creating a “deportation force” that would round up and expel undocumented immigrants. This weekend, however, sources told Univision that the Republican expressed regret for his prior comments about Mexicans and suggested he would offer a more humane approach in an upcoming speech—a move that could endear Trump to nervy G.O.P. leaders but alienate many of his conservative supporters. Addressing the issue Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, Conway tried to have it both ways, arguing that what Trump said in the meeting “differed very little” from what he has said publicly, but after being asked three times if he still supported a deportation force, Conway replied that it was “to be determined.”

Abandoning the central conceit of his presidential campaign with less than three months until the general election is a risky move for a candidate who cleared the G.O.P. field in part by promising the hardest possible stance on immigration. But it is not surprising, given Trump’s repeated winking to Republicans that “everything” he says “is a suggestion.” On This Week, Preibus argued that over the past week what voters have seen is a more mature Donald Trump and that “he is on a great pathway to recalibrate his campaign.” But while Trump has certainly acted more controlled since his campaign shakeup and stuck to the teleprompter, all three aforementioned examples of a change in tone of his campaign—his non-apology apology, his weak appeal to African Americans and his confusing new stance on immigration—point to contradiction at the root of Trump’s most recent “pivot.”