Rick Tyler, former political consultant to GOP presidential runner-up Ted Cruz, joined Boston Herald Radio yesterday to talk about the shake-up in Donald Trump’s campaign that put Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, and pollster Kellyanne Conway in leadership roles. Trump told The Associated Press in a phone interview early Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2016, that he has known both individuals for a long time.
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And the decision also follows a slew of self-inflicted wounds since the Democratic National Convention wrapped, with Trump exchanging barbs with the parents of a slain United States soldier, reigniting intra-party tensions by initially declining to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan in his reelection bid and ultimately suggesting that “Second Amendment people” could act to keep Clinton from appointing liberal Supreme Court justices should she become president. She is well liked by Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, who had been serving as the de facto campaign manager. Paul Manafort remains campaign chairman, but analysts say he has effectively been demoted.
Manafort, who took over the reins following the departure of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in June, has come under scrutiny because of his past work for a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party.
In confirming the campaign overhaul, Trump called Bannon and Conway “big people” who can help him defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton in November.
Shapiro said at the time that Bannon was a “bully” who “has shaped the company into Trump’s personal Pravda”.
The campaign announced Tuesday that it would finally begin airing its first ads of the general election next week in the battleground states of Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Trump has had a bad few weeks, propelling a campaign shakeup announced Wednesday.
These changes reflect the second time that Trump’s campaign staff has had to accommodate to the business mogul’s desire of doing things how he sees fit.
Mr Trump told AP the new leaders were “terrific people. they’re champs”. He attended a breakfast fundraiser with Manafort, who subsequently led two staff meetings, and later convened a security roundtable attended by allies, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
The Republican received his first classified intelligence briefing in NY on Wednesday nevertheless. It has been an unapologetic booster of Trump, critic of Republican establishment figures like Paul Ryan, and attack dog against Hillary Clinton. He’s struggled to offer voters a consistent message, overshadowing formal policy speeches with a steady stream of controversies, including a public feud with an American Muslim family whose son was killed while serving in the US military in Iraq.
Clinton supporters say Trump’s latest shake-up shows the campaign is imploding. What’s become clear from this is that no matter how much the Republican party wants to clean Donald Trump up, get him on a teleprompter and get him on message, he has officially won the fight to let Trump be Trump.
But Clinton wasn’t done taking shots at the Trump campaign’s desperate attempt to turn things around.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to disclose information about the candidates’ intelligence briefings.
Trump’s own campaign has enjoyed a burst of fundraising from direct mail and online donations, saying it raised $64 million that way in July alone – the vast majority of which goes to his campaign, not the Republican Party. He was encouraged to bring Bannon on board by Rebekah Mercer, a member of a prominent GOP fundraising family that has close ties to the Breitbart executive.
Kellyanne Conway has gone from senior advisor to campaign manager.
The shift to new leadership is never a good sign at this stage of a campaign, but some Republican strategists stressed that it was not too late for Mr Trump.
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Breitbart has also touted conspiracy theories about Clinton’s health and published dozens of stories about Bill Clinton’s alleged treatment of women, with headlines like “The Secret Sex Abuse Victims of Bill Clinton”.
