The Trump campaign is falling apart, even as it effectively locked up the Republican nomination. Since Monday, the campaign has been dogged by allegations of infighting, major departures and an accidental email to a journalist that revealed a months worth of Clinton-centric battle plans.
According to reports from POLITICO and others, this week has been a battle royale inside the Trump camp, as campaign manager Corey Lewandowski dukes it out with campaign chairman Paul Manafort for superiority. The conflict has, apparently, been brewing for weeks, as the two pursue competing plans for Trump’s recently official presidential campaign, and vie for the candidate’s undying affection.
Gossip mags have covered Lewandowski’s hair trigger more closely in recent days, a development campaign insiders say is directly linked to Manafort. (The same goes, according to sources, for stories about Lewandowski spending his days shopping around for a book deal.) Manafort claims that his rivals have placed stories about his lobbying connections, his pro-Russian buddies, and his ties to clients in Saudi Arabia. If either one has filmed a romantic encounter with a Kardashian, we’re sure to see it soon (though, for all our sake, hopefully one doesn’t exist).
And both of them have, reportedly, been on the phone with the head honcho, Trump himself, nonstop, though that particular method seems to be more Lewandowski, who “takes all the bad news up to Trump — ‘Paul represented this person, Paul represented that person,’” a source close to the campaign told POLITICO.
Infighting has gotten so bad that Trump, playing referee, has had to literally separate the two troublemakers, putting Manafort in the former Apprentice set on Trump Tower’s 14th floor, while marooning Lewandowski on the tower’s unfinished 5th floor. No word on whether they have to see each other in the cafeteria (and, thankfully, both sport close crops, so there’s no chance of hair-pulling in campaign strategy meetings).
But while Manafort and Lewandowski play Mean Girls (stop trying to make “Crooked Hillary” happen!) with each other, the feud is racking up a high-profile body count. On Wednesday night, top Trump consultant Rick Wiley, who came to the campaign from Scott Walker’s aborted presidential bid, beat a hasty retreat from Trump’s offices. Word is, he was fired after getting in the middle of the Manafort/Lewandowski conflict (maybe also for wearing pink on Thursdays)—and picking the wrong side.
Apparently, Wiley went silent in conversations with Lewandowski after insulting one of Lewandowski’s Florida allies, Karen Giorno. Giorno claimed to campaign sources that Wiley undermined her, even after she orchestrated a big primary win for Trump, and she, too, took her concerns straight to the top, “unloading” to Trump about Wiley in a phone call last week. Trump told staffers Wednesday that he’d had enough: between Giorno’s complaints and Trump’s anger over a fundraising deal with the RNC that wouldn’t let him claim to self-fund any longer, Wiley was out.
Those rifts are just inside the campaign. Outside, top Trump talking head Roger Stone and the head of the pro-Trump Great America PAC have gotten into a war of words on prime time cable, with Stone calling Ed Rollins a buffoon, and Rollins accusing Stone of being jealous of his position with the Trump campaign.
Trump, at least for the time being, will have to maintain peace in his merry band, as Lewandowski and Manafort serve two very different roles on his campaign—and appeal to two very different types of voters. Lewandowski helps with Trump’s grassroots and social media appeal (for better or worse) and Manafort lends an air of professionalism to a campaign that, previously, seemed all red trucker hats and hastily cultivated hero worship.
And while Trump’s top aides might be playing dirty, that’s essentially Trump’s most important —and effective—campaign strategy.