REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL Donald Trump has shaken up his team as he looks ahead to November’s showdown with Hillary Clinton in the general election – dropping his controversial campaign manager.
Corey Lewandowski – who had led the mogul’s campaign from the start and was credited with Trump’s initial breakthrough in the primaries – has recently been sidelined, with more experienced political operatives taking over in the run-up to November.
Lewandowski courted controversy earlier this year over a March run-in with a reporter at a Trump rally.
She accused him of roughly grabbing her, leaving bruises, but he denied that account. Florida prosecutors opted to drop all charges.
“The Donald J. Trump Campaign for President, which has set a historic record in the Republican primary having received almost 14 million votes, has today announced that Corey Lewandowski will no longer be working with the campaign,” spokeswoman Hope Hicks told The New York Times in a statement.
The campaign is grateful to Corey for his hard work and dedication and we wish him the best in the future.
Trump’s team did not specify the terms of Lewandowski’s departure. However, the Guardian, quoting a source, said the news came as a surprise to the advisor when Trump informed him this morning.
The 70-year-old Trump has recently taken a hit in the national polls, and sources within his campaign told the Times that he was looking to make changes ahead of the Republican national convention in mid-July.
Lewandowski’s campaign vision to ‘let Trump be Trump’ is credited with helping the New Yorker to an unlikely primary campaign victory.
The presumptive GOP nominee is due in Scotland this week – and will host a press conference at his Turnberry resort on Friday morning, the day after the Brexit referendum.
- © AFP, 2016 with reporting by Daragh Brophy.
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