New York
In dismissing his longtime campaign chief — just a month before the party’s national convention — Trump signaled, at least for a day, a departure from the seat-of-the-pants style that has fueled his unlikely rise in Republican politics. Perhaps more than anyone else in Trump’s inner circle, the ousted aide has preached a simple mantra: “Let Trump be Trump.”
“I have no regrets,” Lewandowski told CNN just hours after he was escorted out of Trump’s Manhattan campaign headquarters. Still, the former conservative activist seemed to acknowledge the limitations of his approach, which has sparked widespread concern among the GOP’s top donors, operatives, elected officials, and even some of Trump’s family members.
“The campaign needs to continue to grow to be successful,” he said.
Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, described Lewandowski as a “good man” who helped “a small, beautiful, well-unified campaign” during the primary season.
“I think it’s time now for a different kind of a campaign,” Trump said on Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor.
People close to Trump, including adult children Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr., had long-simmering concerns about Lewandowski, who had limited experience on the national scale before becoming Trump’s campaign leader. Like many Republican officials, Trump’s family urged the billionaire businessman to professionalize a bare-bones campaign that had previously resisted adding staff and paid advertising heading into the general election.
A person close to Trump said Lewandowski was forced out largely because of the campaign’s worsening relationship with the Republican National Committee, donors and GOP officials, who have increasingly criticized the candidate’s message and campaign infrastructure in recent weeks.
While Trump dismissed his critics publicly, he has been privately concerned that so many party leaders — House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell among them — have been reluctant to support him, the person said. Trump at least partially blamed Lewandowski.
Yet in his response Monday evening, Trump left little indication that he was prepared to abandon his divisive rhetoric.
He repeatedly called Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” in the Fox interview. He also said “facts” suggest President Obama sympathizes with Muslim terrorists.
“Firing your campaign manager in June is never a good thing,” veteran Republican operative Kevin Madden said. “The campaign will have to show dramatic changes immediately on everything from fundraising and organizing to candidate performance and discipline in order to demonstrate there’s been a course correction. Otherwise it’s just cosmetics.”
Lewandowski’s chief internal rival, campaign chairman Paul Manafort, largely inherits the campaign reins. The political veteran has long advocated a more scripted approach backed by a larger and more professional campaign apparatus, although Trump has shown little willingness to embrace a wholesale change in his approach.
Lewandowski has long been a controversial figure in Trump’s campaign, but he benefited from his proximity to the presumptive Republican nominee. Often mistaken for a member of the candidate’s security team, he traveled with Trump on his private plane to nearly every campaign stop.
His aggressive approach produced internal enemies.
Just minutes after his departure was announced, Trump adviser Michael Caputo tweeted, “Ding dong the witch is dead!” and included a link to the song from the film, The Wizard of Oz.
A few hours later, Caputo was gone, too. The aide was to have served as Trump’s director of communications at next month’s convention, but press secretary Hope Hicks confirmed late in the day that he was no longer with the campaign.