Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, an outspoken Trump supporter and a former Goldman Sachs banker, will assume the new position of campaign chief executive.
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With 82 days to go until the election, Trump’s campaign has been listing badly following a recent series of gaffes that had even members of his own party begging him to reel in the brash remarks. They’re terrific people, they’re winners, they’re champs, and we need to win it, ‘ said the billionaire real estate mogul.
According to a NBC News/Survey Monkey poll released Tuesday, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton holds a six-point lead over Trump, 43 percent to his 37 percent, with two minor party candidates securing a combined 15 percent.
The addition of Bannon and Conway to the campaign’s leadership is widely seen as a demotion for Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a veteran GOP operative. The move came after a day in which Trump sent a Facebook message urging an end to bigotry and oppression.
Known as a devil-may-care conservative, Bannon’s populist and nationalist sympathies reflect his longstanding disgust with both major political parties.
“I want to win”, Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday night after disclosing the staffing changes.
But Mr Trump appears to want to stand by the campaign style that won him the Republican nomination. It’s me. I don’t want to change. Everyone talks about, “Oh, well you’re going to pivot, you’re going to”. I mean, you have to be you.
Conway called the moves “an expansion at a critical time in the homestretch”.
AP said the details of the new hierarchy were hammered out at a lengthy senior staff meeting at Trump Tower on Tuesday and that more senior appointments were expected in the coming days.
He said on Tuesday: “You know, I am who I am”.
‘We’re going to be doing something very dramatic, ‘ Trump added.
Mr Manafort has had a troubled week, following a report in the New York Times that ledgers in Ukraine showed he was earmarked for $12.7m (£9.8m) in undisclosed cash payments from the former pro-Russian government between 2007 and 2012.
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.
In the Wisconsin outing, Trump accused Clinton of “bigotry” and being “against the police, ‘ claiming that she and other Democrats have ‘betrayed the African American community” and pandered for votes. He charged that Clinton has been on the side of the rioters in Milwaukee, declaring: ‘Our opponent Hillary would rather protect the offender than the victim’.
Clinton campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri responded with a statement early Wednesday accusing Trump of being the bigot instead.
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Several people in touch with Trump or his top political advisers in recent days said they had heard a shakeup was possible. When people started saying he was temperamentally unfit, he called Hillary the same. Now he’s accusing her of bigoted remarks – We think the American people will know which candidate is guilty of the charge, ‘ she said.
