In a speech in Charlotte, North Carolina, Donald Trump expressed regret about some of the things he has said during his Presidential campaign. Photograph by Gerald Herbert / AP

Politico ran a good headline on Friday morning: "Regretful Trump Pivots 107 Days Late." The word "pivot" referred to Trump's appearance in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Thursday, where he did indeed express regret about some of the things he has said during his Presidential campaign. He also condemned bigotry. A hundred and seven days is the time that had elapsed between when Trump wrapped up the Republican nomination and when he gave the speech in Charlotte. Some observers hailed this as an important moment.

"This is incredible," CBS News's Sopan Deb tweeted. "For the 1st time - in prepared remarks, Trump expressing regret for some of his campaign conduct." The Washington Examiner's Byron York wrote, "That was new Trump. Very new Trump."

To be sure, Trump's language in Charlotte did represent a change in tone for the candidate, who usually tries to cover up his frailties and insecurities by refusing to give even an inch. But, before buying into the narrative that Trump is suddenly a changed man, it's worth remembering a few things.

For all the fuss over Trump's remarks, they stopped well short of apologies to the subjects of his many offensive statements. "Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don't say the right words or you say the wrong thing," he said. "I have done that and I regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain." If you were Megyn Kelly or Carly Fiorina, or Judge Gonzalo Curiel, or a member of the Khan family, would you have been satisfied with these weasel words? No, you wouldn't. And you'd have been right not to be.

Trump didn't attack the Khans during "the heat of debate." He belittled Ghazala Khan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, in a telephone interview with Maureen Dowd, the Times columnist, on the day after the Democratic Convention ended. Then Trump extended his comments to the dead soldier's father, Khizr Khan, who had criticized him at the Convention, and, despite protests by other Republicans, he kept up his attacks for days.

This wasn't a verbal slip or an instant response. It was a furious lashing out by a politician who realized that the Khans had done him a lot of harm. Now, having allowed almost an entire month to elapse, Trump concedes that he might have said "the wrong thing." A bigger and better man would have issued a direct apology to the Khans, coupling it with similar gestures toward other objects of his ire.

Instead of fessing up properly, Trump continued to blame the media for highlighting what he says. He claimed, "They will take words of mine out of context and spend a week obsessing over every single syllable, and then pretend to discover some hidden meaning in what I said." It wasn't clear which of his many utterances Trump was referring to here. Presumably, it was ambiguous statements like this one: "We have a very hostile judge. Now, he is Hispanic, I believe. He is a very hostile judge to me. I said it loud and clear.” Or perhaps it was this opaque statement: "ISIS is honoring President Obama. He is the founder of ISIS."

The truth, of course, is that there is no "new Trump." But the old one can read the polls, and he knows that he's on a path toward a heavy and ignominious defeat. That's why, this week, he effectively fired his campaign manager, Paul Manafort—who officially resigned on Friday morning—and brought in a new team. That's why he's belatedly reaching out to the black community, where, according to one survey, he's polling at one per cent. And that's why he's making a renewed attempt to mimic Richard Nixon and position himself as the voice of forgotten Americans.

"It’s never been about me," Trump said in Charlotte. "It’s about all the people in this country who don’t have a voice. I am running to be their voice." He added, "There’s a reason the hedge-fund managers, the financial lobbyists, the Wall Street investors are throwing their money at Hillary Clinton. Because they know she will make sure the system stays rigged in their favor."

In rhetorical terms, that's not a bad spiel. Among the many things it ignores, however, are these: 1) Trump has just brought in a wealthy former Goldman Sachs investment banker, Steve Bannon, to run his campaign. 2) The person Bannon's replacing, Manafort, is a prominent Washington lobbyist whose lucrative arrangements with a pro-Russian party in Ukraine had turned into an embarrassing distraction. (Speaking to Fox News on Friday, Trump's son Eric confirmed that's why his dad canned Manafort.) 3) Before making the personnel changes, Trump met with one of the richest and most reclusive hedge-fund managers in the country, Robert Mercer, who has a long record of supporting ultra-conservative causes, including Breitbart, the controversial news site that Bannon runs. While he previously supported the Presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz, it is widely expected that Mercer will now open his wallet for Trump.

"It’s the powerful protecting the powerful—the insiders fighting for the insiders," Trump declared during his speech. In that, at least, he was telling the truth. About himself and his crew.