Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort is resigning from the campaign.
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Washington Post reporter Robert Costa, who broke the news of Manafort’s resignation, attributed the news to a close friend who said Manafort was leaving “on good terms” and to give recent Trump campaign hires more space.
But today, Manafort and the Trump campaign parted ways. Trump’s son, Eric Trump, said unflattering headlines about Manafort were taking a toll.
But after a series of negative headlines, and with his poll numbers flagging, the Trump campaign clearly needed a fresh strategy – and a different tone.
And his firm’s lobbying activities carried outsized importance as Manafort and Gates played a formative role building out Trump’s campaign operation after pushing out an early rival, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
Stephen Bannon of Breitbart News is now serving as chief executive of the campaign and pollster Kellyanne Conway is campaign manager. Conway has advised other Republicans on how to reach out to women with more tailored campaign messages.
“This morning Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign”, Trump said in a statement on Friday. “He did a great job with the delegates, you know, and you know, now you look at KellyAnne (Trump’s new campaign manager) and some of the other people we’re bringing in and they’re absolutely fantastic, and you know, I think they’re gonna be the ones that are going to bring us all the way through November 8”, he said.
Manafort leaves the campaign amid a rising number of news reports about his past work for pro-Russian political elements in Ukraine.
The ledgers, which were seized by protesters who stormed party offices during the chaotic uprising that booted Yanukovych from power in 2014, list Manafort’s name personally and show total payments of $12.7 million beginning in 2007. While his work overseas has been no secret, there are new stories about allegedly secret cash payments that Manafort has denied.
The lobbying included attempts to gain positive media coverage of Ukrainian officials in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
John Feehery, a Republican strategist, said it would have been unsustainable for Manafort to stay on after Wednesday’s hires.
Haynes also said it is not too late for a race against a “flawed candidate” such as Clinton when voters want change.
The shakeup earlier in the week was thought to be a move away from a more conventional, softer tone campaign. “And the Ukrainian stuff was becoming a real distraction”.
Reading from a teleprompter, he told supporters in North Carolina that he had sometimes misspoken.
“And I do regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain”, he added.
As to whether Manafort actually quit or got fired, the source said Manafort resigned, “but it was a formality”.
The FBI declined to comment, CNN reported.
“People think I won”.
The final stretch of the protracted campaign traditionally starts after Labor Day, which falls on September 5 this year.
In the 30-second spot, Two Americas: Immigration, a male narrator warns that Syrian refugees will inundate the United States unless Mr Trump is elected president.
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Three months before the election, Clinton is leading Trump by 47 percent to 41 percent, according to Real Clear Politics’ average of data from major polling operations.
