Trump’s Latest Campaign Shake-up Raises Eyes
It’s another month before the general election and Republican nominee Donald Trump has shaken up his staff yet again. Now, Trump was going to shake things up—yet again. This comes after there was speculation the GOP was going to cut funding.
Trump recently announced Paul Manafort, who the AP has reported as having ties to an undisclosed foreign lobbying group, would no longer be in charge of his campaign. Per U.S. law, lobbyists have to tell the government if they are representing foreign interest groups. Manafort did not do that and there have been calls for an investigation.
It’s even more suspicious considering how Manafort had the funds dispersed. It was done so in a way that would hide that it came from a foreign interest group. If investigated and found that he violated the law, Manafort could spend up to five years in jail as well as paying a fine of $250,000. Whether or not it this is the reason for the shake-up, which the Trump campaign is denying, is unclear. However, it is bad timing as Trump has taken criticism for his sympathetic comments towards Russia and president Vladimir Putin
As for the new faces joining the campaign, those are raising eyebrows as well. He is trying to reboot his campaign more than Warner Bros. tries to reboot the Batman franchise.
Trump has tapped Steve Bannon, the Breitbart LLC executive, to help his campaign before the general election. For those that don’t know about Brannon, he played a part in the story of former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields. For those who don’t remember, Fields got into an altercation with campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and eventually pressed charges.
“That f*****g c**t,” Bannon allegedly said about Fields after the incident, in a report by The Daily Beast.
According to The Beast and staffers at Breitbart, Bannon has been in contact with Trump throughout the campaign.Breitbart has prized itself on being very “pro-Trump” in its work and it apparently bothered some of the staff at the news website.
“Some of us have fought behind the scenes against the party-line Trump propaganda for some time, but without any success, unfortunately,” former national security reporter Jordan Schachtel said in a statement before he quit. “I signed my contract to work as a journalist, not as a member of the Donald J. Trump for President media network.”
There are some who saw Bannon joining Trump as an inevitable conclusion. There were some former staffers, like Schachtel, have come out against Bannon publicly over the shift in Breitbart’s editorial content about the Republican nominee.
Former editor Ben Shapiro is another one who has publicly come out to discuss Bannon’s policies on covering the Trump campaign. Shapiro also resigned after the Fields incident. He told Politico that it’s a perfect match between the two as Bannon has sought to get closer to Trump.
“He’s Trump but smart,” Shapiro said to Politico. “A loudmouth bully who cons his way into positions of power. I think he’ll double Trump down and tell him he’s winning even when he’s losing, because it isn’t about Trump: it’s about what Bannon can get from Trump.”
Bannon wasn’t the only one added to the campaign on Wednesday. Trump promoted Kellyanne Conway to his staff. Conway was a member of running mate Mike Pence and is a pollster. Conway is now the campaign manager and there are some, such as Lewandowski, who view this as a smart move to help the campaign greatly.
“[Conway’s] an excellent person when it comes to message development,” he offered. “Her being on the plane is something that has lacked — senior leadership.”
Lewandowski also said that Conway would give the much-needed temperament to help the campaign navigate his way through this campaign. As of now, the campaign hasn’t had a message unless one counts goes after media instead of his opponent Hillary Clinton.
“What they’re willing to say and do is the type of mindset that the camp want to take to the Clinton people, They’re going to take this fight directly to her.”
