Donald Trump is shaking up his campaign’s leadership amid flagging poll numbers, NBC News has learned.
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Republican Donald Trump is overhauling his campaign again, bringing in Breitbart News’ Stephen Bannon as campaign CEO and promoting pollster Kellyanne Conway to campaign manager.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump reshuffled his campaign staff for the second time in as many months as his bid for the White House continues to sputter. Paul Manafort will stay as campaign chairman and chief strategist.
“Now that the polls have gone way down under the Manafort regime, he (Trump) assumes Manafort is not what he needs and he is looking for folks who will pat him on the head”. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Manafort helped the party secretly route at least $2.2 million in payments to two prominent Washington lobbying firms in 2012, doing so in a way that effectively obscured the party’s efforts to influence US policy.
Instead of Manafort’s attempts to make Trump a more traditional candidate, Bannon will take over as Trump’s top adviser, giving Trump free rein to run as the outsider candidate who won the Republican primaries.
“He is not a fundraiser”, said one donor who has had extensive interaction with Bannon.
Rarely do presidential campaigns undergo this level of tumult at this stage of the general election.
Conway downplayed the notion of internal dissent at campaign headquarters at Trump Tower, telling The Associated Press the staffing changes are “an expansion at a critical time in the homestretch”.
There is much good news but one piece of bad news for Clinton in the Trump shakeup.
The news comes the day Trump is scheduled to receive his first intelligence briefing at the FBI’s offices in NY, an election-season tradition for the nominees from both parties.
The Trump team’s alleged pro-Russia links have been a key issue of the campaign, and the latest allegations sparked a call from the Clinton campaign for a full disclosure.
Clinton said at a voter registration event at a Philadelphia high school that she’s “not taking anybody anywhere for granted” in the race for the White House, saying the stakes “could not be higher”.
Duquette said the staff is not the answer to Trump’s problems.
Several Republicans discussed the personnel changes on the condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to publicly disclose internal thinking.
Republican fundraisers on Wednesday – including those with ties to the brass-knuckled world of Bannon’s Breitbart and anti-establishment insurgent groups – expressed mixed confidence that Bannon could open the door to donors beyond the Mercers.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, sounded similar themes Thursday during a campaign event in Manchester, N.H.
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”. Trump being Trump is precisely what led him to this crisis point.
While Duquette calls Trump “outrageous” and is strongly critical of his campaign, Republican Alderman James Sanders Jr. believes Trump has shown strength.
“He’s a person who, I think, a little bit like myself, is a bit of a street fighter”, Lewandowski said on CNN, where he has been a paid contributor since being dismissed from the Trump campaign in June. Additional senior hires are expected in the next few days.
Will Ritter, a Republican political operative in Virginia who isn’t supporting Trump, offered a biting assessment: “Another guy is going to ride the psychotic horse into a burning stable”.
“August is not October, let alone November”, she said.
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Peoples reported from Washington.
