New Trump manager: We want him to be 'comfortable about being in his own skin'

Donald Trump needs to be "comfortable about being in his own skin" while his team fine-tunes its messaging, the Republican nominee's new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Thursday.

"So I think we're going to sharpen the message. And we're going to make sure Donald Trump is comfortable about being in his own skin, that he doesn't lose that authenticity that you simply can't buy and a pollster can't give you," said Conway, who previously served as Trump's chief pollster and strategist, during a discussion on CNN's "New Day." "And voters know if you're comfortable in your own skin."


Conway added that the campaign would let Trump be Trump in the sense that if the candidate "wants to deliver the speech, if he wants to go to a rally, if he wants to connect with the crowd in a way that's very spontaneous, that's wonderful."

"And that's how he got here. That's how he became the nominee in large part," Conway remarked. "But at the same time, we have some really serious, pressing problems in this country that I'm hoping will start to be addressed more by the media."

Trump will continue to give policy speeches, such as the addresses delivered earlier this week on counterterrorism and security.

"Next week is immigration week followed by education week. And we're really excited about that," said Conway, who also dismissed criticism of Trump's new campaign CEO, Stephen Bannon, taking a leave of absence from running Breitbart News.

CNN's Alisyn Camerota read off a string of inflammatory headlines run by Bannon's website. Conway acknowledged that that she has not read "those stories," but called Bannon a "brilliant tactician."

"He has a long history of, I think, being unafraid," Conway said. "I'll tell you what Donald Trump needs. He needs people who are like him in this sense: You have to be unapologetically, unflinchingly unafraid of Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton and all that Clinton campaign means. Because we feel like we're up against a major machine here. And we -- you know, you need people girded for battle, who are at least willing to leave it all on the field, give it our best shot."