Donald Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski will be in the market for new employment. The embattled and often controversial Lewandowski was let go from Team Trump early Monday morning during a closed-door meeting with the candidate in New York’s Trump Tower.
Lewandowski managed to survive battery charges for manhandling a female reporter, Michelle Fields, at a Trump event in November, sexual harassment allegations that emerged last month, and a prolonged civil war with Trump for President chairman Paul Manafort. But somehow, he just couldn’t make it out of June.
Trump staffers seemed just as confused as the media, who scrambled to cover the breaking news just as the Monday workday was getting underway. It turns out, only Trump himself seemed to know Corey was on the chopping block.
Trump appears to be circling the wagons and trying to move forward with a more professional campaign—one source even told Bloomberg that Trump had been considering merging the Lewandowski and Manafort camps, running on parallel tracks, into a single team. It’s clear now that that involved making big changes.
But while the move may be beneficial for Team Trump, Lewandowski, who Trump insisted he’d “protect” even while Florida authorities were looking into his assault on Fields, will face an uncertain future.
Rumors had circulated that Lewandowski was shopping a dishy, insider book about the Trump campaign to various publishers, but Lewandowski called that an attack from Manafort. He could always join a major network as a political contributor, but while he’s been a fixture on Sunday morning news shows, he’s been there mostly as a Trump mouthpiece, and not as a cutting or insightful political strategist.
He could certainly make the jump to another campaign—he was a talented and effective grassroots organizer for Americans for Prosperity before joining Team Trump—but Team Trump seems determined to scorch Lewandowski’s reputation on his way out the door.
For the record, the Stones’ tour manager did get inducted into the hall of fame.
This could be because it was reportedly Ivanka Trump’s influence that finally got Corey booted. According to sources close to the campaign, Corey had begun threatening to place negative stories about Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, in the press so that Kushner wouldn’t threaten Lewandowski’s role in the campaign. Ivanka wasn’t going to tolerate it—and took her complaints straight to her dad.
That leaves Lewandowski with few employment options. Of course, Michelle Fields has a suggestion—he could take her old job.
It may actually be his best option.