David Jackson

USA TODAY

The latest re-boot of Donald Trump's campaign comes with a script.

In the wake of another staff shake-up, Trump has taken to reading prepared speeches from teleprompters at his mass rallies, seeking to reach beyond his political base and reduce the incendiary off-the-cuff comments that have sidetracked previous efforts.

While backers said a more disciplined style will help Trump rally against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, critics said it's probably too late for the Republican nominee, who trails by large margins in several key states.

"The pivot that he's made is on substance," newly minted Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Sunday on ABC's This Week, noting that the GOP candidate is devoting his new stump speech to issues such as law enforcement, middle class tax relief, and "defeating radical Islamic terrorism."

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus, appearing on CBS' Face The Nation, said Trump is now focused and consistent, and "if he continues down this path" he will close the gap with Clinton.

Members of the Clinton campaign said that, as with previous iterations, there is no "new Trump," and that a few prepared speeches won't erase offensive comments he made during the first 14 months of his campaign.

"They can make him read new words from a teleprompter," Clinton herself told supporters last week, "but he is still the same man who insults Gold Star families, demeans women, mocks people with disabilities, and thinks he knows more about ISIS than our generals."

The new approach surfaced as Trump announced Wednesday that Conway, a veteran Republican pollster and strategist, would become his campaign manager, while Stephen K. Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, would become campaign CEO.

Two days later, Trump — who fired top aide Corey Lewandowski just two months before — said campaign chairman Paul Manafort would be departing.

Amid the staff upheaval, Trump said during a prepared speech Thursday in North Carolina that he regretted offensive comments he has made in the heat of battle. Neither he nor aides specified which comments he was referring to.

In previous weeks and months, Trump reserved prepared texts for what aides billed as major addresses on economic and foreign policy. He gave such a speech Monday at Youngstown State University in Ohio on ways to combat Islamic State extremists.

Manafort resigns from Trump campaign

As he changed his campaign team, Trump brought his teleprompter to more traditional political rallies in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan, and Virginia.

The new stump speech includes an agenda with proposals to rebuild the military, restrict immigration by Middle East refugees, build a wall along the the U.S.-Mexico border, and change trade deals that he says sends jobs overseas. The New York businessman also attacks a "rigged system" run by elites at the expense of everyday Americans. These are all themes he has mentioned throughout the campaign.

Trump will continue to make policy speeches, aides said, including a soon-to-be announced address on immigration. Trump, who has proposed a new "deportation force," told an Hispanic advisory council this weekend that he may propose a "humane" way to address the at least 11 million undocumented migrants who are already in the country.

Asked if he would include the "deportation force" in his immigration plan, Conway told CNN's State of the Union: "To be determined."

Trump's critics have focused on his hiring of Bannon, saying the Breitbart News website traffics in conspiracy theories. Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, speaking on ABC's This Week, called Breitbart "a so-called news organization" that has "defended white supremacists, that's been sexist, racist — the worst of our politics."

Democrats also said that Trump continues to fuel unfounded rumors about Clinton's health, questioning whether she has the "stamina" to be president.

Not everything Trump has said in recent days has been scripted.

While speaking in Michigan on another new riff in his speeches — an appeal to African-Americans who have voted overwhelmingly Democratic in the past — Trump added: “You're living in poverty. Your schools are no good. You have no jobs. Fifty-eight percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?"

Brandon Davis, general election chief of staff for the Democratic National Committee, said Trump played to "inaccurate, negative stereotypes of people of color," and it wasn't the first time. "Sadly," Davis said, "we've come to expect this type of disgraceful and dangerous race-baiting from Trump."

Some Republicans are skeptical that a new approach will work for Trump little more than two months before the election.

Republican strategist Ryan Williams, who worked for 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, said Trump "still veers off script and he’s far too damaged at this point to save himself. People have already formed extremely negative opinions of Trump and there is nothing he can do to change them."

Trump to black voters: ‘What the hell do you have to lose?’

After a previous reboot, following last month's Republican convention, Trump sidetracked himself with a joking comment in which he suggested that the Russians hack Clinton in a search for missing e-mails. Critics later accused him of threatening Clinton after he said that pro-gun rights Second Amendment people might have to do something about her prospective election.

Trump supporters who trekked to a convention center in Fredericksburg, Va., said they liked Trump's new approach on the stump.

"I'm glad he's been cleaning it up a bit," said Tonya Lohr, 36, a cancer survivor and former government employee from Fredericksburg. "He's not so all over the map and that's good." Lohr also said she likes Trump's "brash behavior," and that "people need to hear what everybody's been mumbling about for years behind the scenes."

Rep. Dave Brat, who rode a Tea Party wave to an upset over then-House Republican leader Eric Cantor in the 2014 Republican primary, said he likes "the new framing" by Trump and his team. Brat said Trump is laying out a strong case against political "cronyism," and how it hurts everyday Americans. If he keeps it up, Brat said, "he'll win."

Amanda Rose, 25, an independent contractor from Fredericksburg, said Trump needs to remain passionate and inspiring during his more formal speeches, and he did that in Virginia.

"Everybody was just so revved up," she said.