Wisconsin radio host Charlie Sykes said he’s been courted by Donald Trump via a handwritten note — but the conservative commentator said he’s still on the #NeverTrump train.
Sykes wrote for RightWisconsin.com on Friday that Trump’s note to him was scrawled on the front page of a recent issue of The New York Times.
“Charlie — I hope you can change your mind. Look forward to doing your show,” Trump wrote, according to Sykes. The real estate magnate drew an arrow to a Times story, “Once Against, Another Flank Of G.O.P. Warms Up to Trump,” signed the note and then wrote, “I will win!”
“Apparently, Donald Trump is deciding that he wants to actually reach out to conservatives and that he recognizes that he’s going to have to do a little bit of damage control if he’s going to unify the Republican Party,” Sykes told CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield Saturday on “CNN Newsroom.”
“I want to make it clear that I appreciate the fact that he made the effort to send me that newspaper, and didn’t have a dead fish wrapped in it or anything,” Sykes joked. “At least he was suggesting he might want to come back on the show.”
Sykes tweeted on Friday, “Charm offensive? Just got a handwritten note from @realDonaldTrump. Seriously. Apparently reaching out to #NeverTrump”
He later followed with, “Safe to say that @realDonaldTrump note is… unusual… but I appreciate the outreach. But still #NeverTrump”
Sykes interviewed Trump on his radio show a week before the Wisconsin primary in March, and asked Trump halfway through the interview if he knew Sykes was a #NeverTrump supporter.
“It was somewhat brutal … I pressed him pretty hard on his insults to the wives of other candidates, the things he’d said about women,” Sykes told Whitfield. “I would say that we were cordial, he was a good sport about it, but it was a tough interview.”
Sykes said he’s also #NeverHillary, so he’s not sure yet who he’ll vote for in November.
“I will definitely vote and I am still holding out for the possibility that there will be a third-party candidate,” he told Whitfield. “But also, I am holding out hope that I’ll get a unicorn for my birthday.”
