Lewandowski, who was sacked by Trump in June, drew a puzzling parallel to make his point, arguing that in 2004, John Kerry was also making staff changes as the election approached. A Democrat hasn’t won a presidential vote in either of those two states since the 1970s.
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“My father didn’t want to be, you know, distracted by whatever things Paul was dealing with”, Eric Trump told Fox News, talking up what Bannon and Conway were bringing to the campaign and the new refocus of the campaign. Manafort also said in a statement earlier this week that he never performed work for the Russian or Ukrainian governments.
“This morning Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign”. Bannon’s hiring was seen as a signal Trump would double-down on some of his more controversial impulses, though that hasn’t proven to be the case in the first few days of their new partnership.
Mr. Manafort’s role, beginning in March, was to guide the delegate-selection process and to ensure that Mr. Trump left Cleveland as the Republican presidential nominee.
Manafort said he’s “never received a single ‘off-the-books cash payment”‘ and that all money directed to him was for work carried out in Ukraine by his political team, according to a statement reported by NBC News on Monday.
Just hours before Trump landed in Baton Rouge, his son Eric criticised Obama for not travelling to Louisiana in an interview with Fox News, saying that the president “can’t stop a round of golf to go check in on the victims of this bad tragedy”.
In East Baton Rouge Parish, residents emerged from their homes to wave at Trump’s motorcade, some with gloved hands dirty from their house-gutting work. Trump said he’d consider recognizing Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, and raised alarm in eastern Europe in July by saying that the USA would only defend North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies against a possible Russian attack if those nations “have fulfilled their obligations to us”.
And he also depicted himself as an agent of change compared to Clinton, whom he dismissed as an old-fashioned Washington insider, while promising to strengthen United States ethics rules to fight influence peddling.
In spite of Mr Manafort’s efforts to impose discipline on the Republican nominee, Mr Trump continued to do badly in the polls and reportedly bristled at efforts to bring him under control.
Trump’s son, Eric Trump, said unflattering headlines about Manafort were taking a toll.
Trump’s trip to Louisiana, a departure for the candidate who has generally preferred mass rallies and television phone-ins, comes a day after he made a rare expression of remorse.
Nationwide poll made by “Pew” Research Center suggests a certain reduction in the gap between Clinton and Trump.
Why he said it I understand. “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.
Republicans inside and outside the campaign give much of the credit for Trump’s stronger week to Kellyanne Conway, the new campaign manager.
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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, followed by running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, emerges from his plane as he arrives to tour the flood damaged city of Baton Rouge, La., Friday, Aug. 19, 2016.
