“It was not me, that’s all Donald Trump”, she said when asked if the GOP nominee’s shift it tone came as a result of her joining the campaign.
Advertisement
His campaign announced on Wednesday a personnel reshuffling that saw conservative news outlet Breitbart chairman Stephen Bannon made campaign CEO and pollster Kellyanne Conway assume the campaign manager spot.
Only on Tuesday, the eve of its announcement, was Mr. Manafort informed of the campaign’s impending shake-up: Ms. Conway would become campaign manager, and Mr. Bannon would become the campaign’s chief executive.
The resignation comes as the campaign seeks to correct course after weeks of damaging controversies and self- inflicted wounds, effectively evaporating Trump’s steady footing against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the polls and his post-convention bump.
Leshchenko also said Manafort continued to work in Ukraine after Yanukovych fled and a new pro-European government stepped in and that Manafort consulted the Party of Regions for the 2014 parliamentary election and visited Ukraine past year.
The New York businessman brought Manafort into the campaign in March to organize the Republican nomination, including the prospect of a delegate challenge by “Never Trump” opponents.
Is that nice apologetic man really Donald Trump? Rarely do presidential campaigns wait to advertise, or undergo such leadership tumult, at such a late stage of the general election. Throughout the campaign, Trump has generally refused to apologize for remarks viewed as insensitive or insulting.
Trump’s son Eric said in an interview to air on Fox News this weekend that his father wanted to avoid being “distracted by whatever things Paul was dealing with”.
Manafort and business associate Rick Gates, another top strategist in Trump’s campaign, were working in 2012 on behalf of the political party of Ukraine’s then-president, Viktor Yanukovych. This work was conducted without registering as foreign agents, as required by federal law, the AP reported.
Instead, a new Trump emerged on Thursday: a less combative, more inclusive candidate who said he was running to be the “voice for every forgotten part of this country that has been waiting and hoping for a better future” and for those who “don’t hear anyone speaking for them”.
“Trump and he don’t have chemistry”, the aide said. “Manafort has been beating back reports from multiple media outlets in recent days over his ethics, which have been egged on by a Clinton campaign eager to highlight Trump’s ties to the Kremlin”.
But his departure from Trump’s staff is likely to cause a “ripple effect” as staffers loyal to Manafort are reassigned – or leave.
Advertisement
The real question, though, is whether that change of heart is honest or if it was merely words on a teleprompter that he reluctantly agreed to read. He could go through them one by one, categorically, expressing regret to individuals and ethnicities about which he’s said controversial things.
