ROBERT COSTA: The statement last night and Paul Manafort this morning, it’s really not that surprising to see because there is a culture of defiance within the Trump campaign. There’s a sense --
JOE SCARBOROUGH (CO-HOST): And within Trump.
COSTA: Enabled by Trump, driven by Trump, shaped by the candidate. And it comes from the candidate down. Based on my reporting last night, Jason Miller, the communications adviser, Paul Manafort, they took about an hour or so to come up with this statement, huddling together. And there’s a sense within the Trump campaign a few blocks away, as they were thinking this through, that the press is the problem here. That the press is stepping overboard.
[…]
SCARBOROUGH: This is an internal problem they've got to fix. And I've got to say, Paul Manafort is not helping things at all by coming up with statements last night that didn't make sense and then making them inoperative this morning, four hours later.
WILLIE GEIST: I was going to say, I don't know how you get out of a corner that's now been painted for the Trump campaign by the statement Manafort put out, where he said in no uncertain terms, this is not plagiarism.
[...]
SCARBOROUGH: Manafort has just put a target on his back.
[CROSSTALK]
SCARBOROUGH: Because now the way you fix it is by firing Paul Manafort.
CHUCK TODD: Two days in a row, you could argue that Manafort himself, a Manafort statement --
MIKA BRZEZINSKI (CO-HOST): Has messed up everything.
TODD: Has caused a bad half of a news cycle.
