Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort said Friday that the GOP ticket was heading in the right direction, calling an unquestionably tumultuous stretch of days "an improving week."
It started with a Sunday interview on ABC, during which Donald Trump attacked a Gold Star family, suggested the legitimacy of Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea, and appeared not to know about the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Trump led a five-day feud with the Khan family, after Khizr Khan, whose Muslim-American son died fighting in Iraq in 2004, criticized him during a speech at the Democratic National Convention.
The businessman said Sunday that Khan's wife Ghazala stood silent during the DNC speech because she "wasn't allowed to have anything to say." Trump then claimed that he had "made a lot of sacrifices" in response to Khan's assertion that he had sacrificed "nothing and no one."
"I've worked very, very hard," Trump said. "I've created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures."
Trump's advisers reportedly urged him to end the confrontation with Khan, but he persisted, resulting in condemnation from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and high-ranking lawmakers including Arizona senator John McCain.
That Tuesday, Trump added to the chaos by refusing to endorse both House speaker Paul Ryan and Senator McCain.
"I'm not quite there yet," he said, echoing the language that Ryan used when he hesitated to endorse Trump. The businessman also tweeted at Ryan's Wisconsin primary opponent, Paul Nehlen, thanking him for his "kind words."
The whole fiasco reportedly left Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus "apoplectic."
Around mid-week, the Trump campaign's apparent inability to control the Donald came to a fore.
"Manafort not challenging [Trump] anymore," an ally of Manafort told CNBC. "Mailing it in. Staff suicidal."
Manafort proceeded to insist that the businessman was "in control of his campaign."
The week was also sprinkled with foreign policy blunders.
On Wednesday, after the Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration had paid Iran $400 million in cash around the time that Tehran released four American hostages, Trump claimed to have seen "secret" footage of the cash transfer.
"Iran — I don't think you heard this anywhere but here — Iran provided all of that footage, the tape of taking that money off that airplane," Trump saidduring a rally in Florida.
His campaign later told the Washington Post that the tape was actually "b-roll" footage used during a Fox News broadcast. The film showed three Americans exiting a plane in Switzerland after being freed from Iran.
Trump repeated the secret footage story at a rally Thursday. The next day he retracted his claim by tweet.
"The plane I saw on television was the hostage plane in Geneva, Switzerland, not the plane carrying $400 million in cash going to Iran!" he wrote.
All in all, it has been an "improving" week.