Trump tried to clean up his TV comments. Social media was a different story.

Over the past year, former President Donald J. Trump’s rhetoric has been in line with his longstanding impulses. He has expressed lies about the 2020 election, vowed to be the people’s “retribution” if he wins a second term, and described undocumented immigrants as “poisoning the blood of our country,” echoing language used by fascists like Adolf Hitler are used.

Payback and demonizing immigrants have been themes of Trump’s political campaigns for years. But during his Fox News town hall event Wednesday in Iowa, Mr. Trump began trying to clarify those comments.

He insisted he would have no time for retaliation, although he began by saying some suggested it wasn’t a bad idea because of the investigations into him. He issued a muted statement agreeing that political violence, which he is often accused of fomenting, should not exist.

Most notably, he did not repeat his lies that the 2020 election he lost was “rigged.” He was previously confronted by the moderators about his claims of election fraud. Bret Baier, one of the moderators, challenged Mr. Trump on the issue in an interview in June, drawing on Mr. Trump’s previous comments about one of the criminal investigations he is facing.

Trump also continued to try to avoid being pinned down on his position on abortion bans, as he has been for months, by saying Republicans needed to win elections. Yet he also boasted that he was the reason the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, citing his appointments to the court. Democrats immediately spread these comments.

But after the town hall event, Trump resumed his more inflammatory comments on his Truth Social website. When he voluntarily went to civil court in Manhattan on Thursday, the morning after the town hall, for the fraud trial against him and his company, he declared: “Election interference!”

That Mr. Trump presented a more restrained front on the air than he usually does nevertheless underscores why he has been such a frustrating opponent for rivals in both parties over the years. He says different things about the same topic, sometimes in the same sentence, allowing people to hear what they want.

And when his back is against the wall, he has shown the ability to be more disciplined than his public or social media comments suggest.

It remains to be seen whether he will act similarly in future interviews as he and his advisers look beyond the primaries and focus on the general election – all while facing the prospect of standing trial in criminal courts in four jurisdictions with cases against him.

But Mr. Trump has a long history of attempting to modulate past statements and then returning to more extreme behavior at almost every opportunity.