Behind the scenes of a complicated week — including a Twitter fact-check and an ongoing dispute over the use of face masks during the pandemic — President Donald Trump has shaken up his campaign staff, after warnings he was losing support in key swing states just five months ahead of the election.
On Wednesday, Politico reported that David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski, senior aides from Trump’s successful 2016 campaign, met with the president on May 18 to warn him that he was beginning to lose traction in battleground states he had previously won and to advise him that changes were needed if he was going to win a second term.
Three days later, campaign leaders sent party organizers from Arizona and Florida to the White House to brief an angered Trump about the details of both presidential and political congressional campaigns in their states, according to Politico.
This week, Trump’s 2020 campaign began to reorganize its most senior ranks, promoting White House political director Bill Stepien to deputy campaign manager, The New York Times reported.
“I will continue to support Brad Parscale as he leads the campaign, working with all of our partners in states across the country, and helping to coordinate all of our efforts to ensure the president is re-elected,” Stepien said in a statement, according to The Times.
Parscale — the 2020 campaign manager and social media warfighter behind Trump’s 2016 election success — said on Twitter that the campaign was “getting stronger by promoting from within.”
Trump 2020 also elevated Stephanie Alexander from Midwest political director to the campaign’s chief of staff.
In public, the president has shifted his focus from the coronavirus to attacks on foes both real and perceived — speaking from the press room podium about his “Obamagate” theory, tweeting unsubstantiated accusations that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough was involved in a murder and arguing without evidence that mail-in voting is rife with election fraud. Twitter went so far as to attach fact-check warnings on a pair of the president’s tweets.
The widower of Lori Kaye Klausutis, an aide who was found dead in Scarborough’s Florida congressional office in 2001, has asked Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to remove the president’s tweets that claim his wife was murdered, even though medical officials did not suspect foul play, according to The Associated Press.
The state of Utah has allowed universal vote-by-mail since 2012 without incident. It is one of five western states to do so.
On Tuesday, a key Trump ally distanced himself from the president on one specific issue. During his self-titled segment on Fox News, Sean Hannity offered “humble” and “common sense” advice, criticizing young partygoers whose disregard of social distancing guidelines at Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks last weekend went viral on social media, and encouraging the use of face masks.
“That’s why, in a short period of time — it’s only temporary — if you can’t social distance, please wear the mask,” he said. “Do it for your mom, your dad, your grandma, your grandpa.”
Hannity said he was confident the country could begin to reopen “while protecting the most vulnerable and opening up the country.”
That sequence came just hours after Trump accused a White House reporter of being “politically correct” for not removing his mask during a press conference on the White House lawn.
While Trump has endorsed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s suggestions to wear in face mask to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus, he has consistently refused to wear one in public and during pressers.
Dr. Anthony Fauci — the nation’s leading infectious disease expert and a member of the White House coronavirus task force — continued to encourage Americans to wear face masks during an interview with CNN Wednesday morning.
“I want to protect myself and protect others, and also because I want to make it be a symbol for people to see that that’s the kind of thing you should be doing,” Fauci said.