Donald Trump’s bare-knuckle-fighting campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, is stepping away from the presidential campaign he guided through a contentious Republican primary. And “Hillary Clinton surged the trade deficit with China 40 percent as secretary of state, costing Americans millions of jobs”.
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Trump’s decision came in part at the urging of his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, who have powerful advisory roles in the campaign, the person in contact with Trump aides said. The billionaire businessman plans to focus in particular on Clinton’s tenure at the State Department, arguing that her foreign policy is in part responsible for the creation of the Islamic State militant group.
By all accounts, Trump’s frightful last month of plummeting polls numbers and lagging organization only served as the backdrop – but not the reason – that manager Corey Lewandowski was let go.
In May more than $1.1 million – 1 in 6 dollars that Donald Trump spent – went to his own businesses, his family or himself, according to an ABC News analysis of new campaign finance records.
“We can’t let him bankrupt America like we are one of his failed casinos”, Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said of Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, during a speech in Columbus, Ohio.
Yet Trump’s companies also charge his campaign for goods and services, putting him at risk of appearing to be a self-dealer.
Trump’s allies, donors, and other Republican operatives have expressed concerns about his campaign operation, which has been dogged by internal battles, a threadbare campaign infrastructure, and thin fundraising apparatus. Since then, the campaign’s rival factions have been jockeying for power, slowing hiring and other decision-making.
Even refreshments have a Trump tie.
The bad blood behind the tweet had been simmering for months on the Trump campaign, as multiple media reports indicated Lewandowski had become a divisive figure on the staff. Mr Trump has yet to reserve any advertising time.
But as he got closer to locking up the nomination, he backed away from the rhetoric, saying that he wouldn’t be self-funding through the general election – despite continuing to boast of his net worth, which has claimed is close to $10 billion.
It’s been a lodestar of Trump’s campaign messaging from day one that he doesn’t need money.
“There’s a lot of reluctance”, said Spencer Zwick, who was Mitt Romney’s chief fundraiser four years ago. “In some respects I get more support from the Democrats than the Republicans”.
“If it signals a change in his style and approach, it can only be positive”.
Trump advisers said they were not concerned. “And I feel that, no matter what he does on the fundraising front, he’s going to be at a huge financial disadvantage”, he said, explaining that it typically takes candidates two years to build fundraising operations.
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Trump declined to answer definitively in September when ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos asked him about the president’s faith, which is Christian.
