Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says he will continue traveling with the GOP presidential candidate this fall in spite of reports that say he was ousted by senior campaign staff.
A report in The Guardian said that Lewandowski has lost his power struggle after swooping in as an unpaid senior adviser in August with plans to take over this year’s campaign. Sources told the British news outlet that Trump merely asked people to find “something for Corey to do.”
But Lewandowski tells the Daily Beast that he plans to travel with Trump “for most of the next four weeks.”
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“I’m a volunteer on the campaign. I continue to be a volunteer,” he said. “I don’t want to be paid. I just want to see Donald Trump win.”
And in a thinly veiled shot at top aides, namely Chris LaCivita, Lewandowski told the Daily Beast, “This may not be the best way for staff to treat volunteers.”
In addition to playing palace intrigue against Trump campaign chiefs LaCivita and Susie Wiles, Lewandowski also reportedly began a clandestine audit of the campaign’s finances because of his misgivings about LaCivita, The Guardian reported.
“Corey was trying to Kamikaze into Chris,” one Trump ally told the paper.
What Trump’s tenacious, temperamental pal forgot is that no one in the building was especially keen on him. The Guardian noted that much of the Trump campaign team was hired by Wiles and LaCivita and has been working with them for two years. Without any allies, his ambitions for reclaiming his MAGA throne fell flat.
Lewandowski, according to the Guardian, has been instructed to stay out of the campaign’s way and focus on his surrogate duties, as well as New Hampshire, where Lewandowski has a home and has been involved in local politics. The state hasn't voted Republican in a presidential election since 2000, when it was carried by George W. Bush, but Trump narrowly lost by 0.3 percentage points in 2016.
Recent polls have put Vice President Kamala Harris comfortably ahead in the state.
“I’m proud to volunteer my time to do everything possible to help Donald J. Trump win this election and Make America Great Again,” Lewandowski told The Guardian.
Lewandowski was already batting with two strikes: He was fired before Election Day in 2016 after clashes with Trump’s family and then was fired from a pro-Trump super PAC in 2021 over allegations he made unsolicited sexual advances toward a female donor.
And yet, despite his exile and repeated screwups, his old boss seems to maintain a soft spot for him.
The Guardian said Lewandowski traveled on Trump’s private plane to his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania this past weekend.
“He’s Trump’s comfort blanket,” another Trump ally told the newspaper. “And he’s like a cockroach. He never dies.”
