Let Trump Be Trump

by Corey R. Lewandowski

  In the middle of August, we headed to a must-stop event for every presidential candidate, the Iowa State Fair. There the boss pulled off one of the great campaign PR maneuvers of all time. Chuck Laudner actually came up with the idea. He’d heard about Mr. Trump giving helicopter rides to Dave’s kids in New Hampshire, and he asked the boss if he would do the same at the fair. Of course, he didn’t care that it was a three-day helicopter trip, that the Sikorsky, which had a three-hundred-mile range, would have to refuel four times each way. Nor did he care that it would be a huge insurance liability. But neither did Mr. Trump.

  “Don’t worry about it,” the boss said about the cost. “Let’s do it.”

  As it turned out, the media coverage we received was worth a hundred times the outlay. A photo of the Sikorsky with TRUMP emblazoned on its side ran in newspapers and on television news segments across the country. Martha Raddatz of ABC News elbowed her way onto the first trip on the helicopter with Mr. Trump and the children so she could use the footage for ABC’s Sunday news show. One of the kids on the ride asked Mr. Trump if he was Batman. Perfect!

  You couldn’t pay for better PR.

  On December 2, 2015, Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married Muslim couple living in Redlands, California, walked into a state-run San Bernardino center that provided services for the disabled and shot and killed fourteen people, wounding twenty-two others. Five days later, on the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Trump campaign issued a statement that called for the ban of all Muslims entering the United States. Later that day, at a rally in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina aboard the USS Wisconsin, the boss reiterated his stance. As was the case with the uproar over his comments about John McCain, the reaction to and condemnation of the proposed ban in the press and by the other candidates was fast and furious. Jeb Bush called Trump “unhinged.” Governor Christie said the plan was ridiculous, and Senator Lindsey Graham said it was “downright dangerous” to the United States. Two days after we released the statement, a Bloomberg poll showed 65 percent of Republican voters were for a Muslim ban, and nearly 40 percent said they were now more likely to vote for Trump because he had proposed it.

  We started talking about the Muslim ban right after San Bernardino. There wasn’t a person on the Trump team who was against releasing the statement. And yet, according to those who are supposed to know about these things, Donald Trump was a dangerous ideologue and his campaign didn’t know what it was doing.

  For us, the decision was simple. We wanted none of the other candidates to move to the right of us on immigration. From the overwhelmingly positive reaction we received at rallies to the boss’s hard-line immigration stance, we knew he had struck a chord with a large number of voters. What we couldn’t believe was how tone-deaf all the other candidates and the mainstream media seemed to be.

  A lot of comparisons have been made between Brexit, Britain’s June 2016 withdrawal from the European Union, and the Trump campaign. Indeed, we shared the same major issues: immigration and trade. But we also shared a passion that, as strong and significant as it was, was nearly invisible to the establishment. The boss became friendly with Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party, who, like Trump, was the leader of a movement many underestimated.

  By Christmas, the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries were approaching fast. Though the boss, of course, wanted to win them both, he wanted to win Iowa big-league. One reason he wanted to win the caucuses was because so many people had told him that he couldn’t. But maybe the main reason he wanted to win the caucuses is because he wanted to beat Ted Cruz.

  In one way, the battle for the Iowa caucuses turned out to be a land war against an air campaign. Having the Citation X was a huge advantage because we could hit multiple media markets outside Iowa: the Nebraska media market, the Wisconsin media market, and the southern Iowa media market. Sometimes we’d be in the air for only fifteen, twenty minutes. It would take other candidates hours to drive the same distance. We would do three events in a day while they would only do one or two, tops. Chuck Lauder put together the strategy. He’d tell us where we should go and when to be there, both from a timing perspective and an optics perspective. We’d do a big rally and then a small hall, and then a small hall and a big rally. There are certain boxes that every candidate has to check in Iowa. It was the model Governor Bradstad used to be successful.

  But Ted Cruz had been in Iowa for months. He had so many volunteers that his campaign rented a college dorm in Des Moines to house them. We couldn’t field a baseball team with the full-time people we had on the ground. Though we ruled the air, there’s something to be said for good old retail politics—hitting the mom-and-pop stores, having breakfast in the local diner. It was a classic race between the tortoise and the hare. Cruz was giving us all we could handle and more.

  It wasn’t like Cruz was the only one in the race. Dr. Ben Carson started out as a real threat. Marco Rubio had a significant presence, and Jeb overwhelmingly outspent our campaign (later, after losing big there, he denied putting any effort into Iowa). There was also Huckabee and Santorum, both of whom commanded a strong following among religious conservatives. Santorum had won the caucuses there in 2012 and Huckabee in 2008.

  As the voting drew near, the boss put a lot of pressure on Corey. It was Donald Trump’s first election of any kind as a candidate, and he saw it as do or die. Winning Iowa isn’t always an indicator that you’ll be the nominee. In 2008, when McCain was the Republicans’ choice at the convention, Mike Huckabee had swamped him in Iowa. But you couldn’t tell Trump that. One day in January, he ordered Corey off the jet in the middle of a blizzard with the instructions, “Go win Iowa for me.”

  Six months earlier, the idea that Donald Trump would even be competitive in the caucuses was a fantasy. “You could have won a hundred million dollars betting that he would finish in the top three,” Corey said. Perhaps, if everything had broken Donald Trump’s way that day, he might have pulled off the victory. But everything didn’t break his way.

  A caucus system is very different from a primary. Voters go to a given location at a given time, where they listen to candidates or representatives of the candidates. Then they cast votes for a delegate of the candidate of their choice. For a campaign, it requires an enormous amount of organizational skill. You need to have all seven hundred of the caucus locations covered. You need speakers or at least reps in all of those places, and you have to have campaign literature at all of those places. Trump visited the largest sites, in Ames and other areas, while his surrogates covered as many of the smaller venues as they could. At the time, our surrogates numbered eight or nine. They included the candidate’s grown children, Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka, and his son-in-law Jared. Our limited number was a recipe for disaster.

  Though the small number of campaign representatives would indeed prove problematic, it was perhaps unrealistic expectations, mostly from family members, that would lead to the beginning of the end of Corey’s time as Donald Trump’s campaign manager.

  Corey was in the SUV with Keith, Hope, and the candidate on caucus day when the call came. When Trump hung up the phone, he looked at Corey.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” he said to him. “This team is completely lost.”

  It had been Ivanka on the phone. She and Jared had arrived as surrogates at a precinct caucus to find it without any Trump campaign staff or even literature. Nothing makes the boss angrier than when someone embarrasses his children. As far as Trump was concerned, the screwup at the voting location was inexcusable and a permanent mark against Corey. Though the mix-up was more the state director’s fault than his, Corey was the campaign manager and ultimately bore the responsibility for all aspects of the campaign in Iowa. Plus, for most of the time, he was seated right next to Trump, so he was an easy target.

  In retrospect, the campaign’s performance in Iowa was pretty remarkable given the size of and inexperience of the team. We had set a goal of 45,000 votes, which we achieved with ro
om to spare. Of course, we thought that 45,000 would be enough to win. In 2016, however, the Iowa caucuses drew a record-breaking number of voters—in no small measure because Donald Trump was in the race. And had it not been for a robocall blast by Cruz’s campaign the day of the voting containing the erroneous message that Ben Carson had dropped out of the race, Trump might have won. There was also the not-so-little matter of the boss skipping the Fox News debate in Des Moines the week before the caucuses because of the Megyn Kelly issue, which, though his base supported the move, might have hurt him in Iowa. Still, he finished second, falling short by just a little over six thousand votes. Any other candidate would have had plenty of positives to take from the effort. Marco Rubio took third, and his campaign was ecstatic. But for Donald Trump, second place was the same as coming in last. And in the boss’s eyes, losing Iowa was a significant strike against Corey.

  The week following the Iowa caucuses was a low point in the campaign. Mr. Trump wouldn’t let go of the loss and took every opportunity to remind audiences how Cruz had cheated. In close quarters, he took the opportunity to chastise Corey and anyone else on his team who crossed his path. Trump was in a miserable mood, and his temperament started to have a discernible negative effect on his numbers. The New Hampshire primary was only a week away, on November 9, and Corey was concerned his attitude would turn voters off. Then Jeff Roe, Ted Cruz’s campaign manager, called, and the concern increased to real worry.

  “Your candidate is dropping like a rock,” Roe told Corey. “Your favorable rating is dropping through the floor.”

  Why, you ask, was Ted Cruz’s guy so concerned about the health of our campaign? Well, the Cruz camp had made a strategic decision to run against Donald Trump at the end of the campaign, when most of the other primary candidates would be out of the race, and not compete in New Hampshire. He also knew the Trump campaign did not use polling (hard to believe for a candidate who just missed winning the Iowa caucus) and so Corey didn’t have the data he had.

  “You’re down nine points in the last three days,” Roe said. “And if you don’t do something soon, you could lose New Hampshire, and John Kasich will catch you.”

  On the Thursday before the Tuesday primary, Corey called Ed Rollins. Like many in politics, Corey has great respect for Rollins. Rollins had run Ronald Reagan’s presidential reelection campaign. Without looking at any data, Rollins estimated that Trump’s “fave/unfave” number had dropped 10 points.

  “You’re on the cusp of losing this thing,” he told Corey.

  Corey was not traveling with the candidate when he called Rollins. Although the boss spent most of his time in the Granite State that week with Corey, Trump also did events in South Carolina and Little Rock, Arkansas without him. After talking with Rollins, and while the boss was on the road, Corey called Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric.

  “Guys,” he said on the teleconference. “If your father doesn’t change his negative ways, he’s going to lose New Hampshire. And if he loses New Hampshire he’ll lose South Carolina. If he loses South Carolina, your father will be a very wealthy person who once ran for president of the United States.”

  That afternoon, Mr. Trump walked into the campaign office in Manchester for lunch. He greeted the volunteers who were busy making phone calls for him. Trump’s volunteers received very little credit in the press, but there wasn’t a more enthusiastic or dedicated group among the campaigns in the 2016 cycle, or any other cycle for that matter. Corey was in the small office he had taken over since his arrival in New Hampshire. On his desk sat a bag from McDonald’s for the boss. When Trump walked in, Corey got right to the point.

  “Sir, we need to talk,” he said.

  Corey remembers the moment as the frankest conversation he had had with his boss—just campaign manager to candidate. He told Trump of the Roe and Rollins telephone calls. He informed the boss of anecdotal evidence he’d gathered. Corey knew the New Hampshire voter.

  “If you don’t start talking about what your positive vision is for the country and stop complaining about Ted Cruz, you’re going to lose,” he said frankly.

  The candidate listened quietly as he ate his hamburger. When he finished, he stood up and walked out of the room. That day he had an event at the Manchester Police Department and had to be there for the afternoon shift change. Along with Chief Nick Willard and much of the department’s rank and file, waiting for him at the police headquarters was an officer who had recently been shot in the line of duty. The hospital gave the injured cop a temporary pass to leave because he wanted to see Trump. The bond between law enforcement and Donald Trump is one of the strongest among his base. And the admiration goes both ways.

  The cameras that day didn’t capture the true emotion of the event. It’s very seldom you see the boss emotional. As he shook the wounded man’s hand, however, you could see the gratitude in his expression.

  When the boss left the police headquarters, he went to Theo’s Pizza Restaurant on Elm Street in Manchester for a CNN town hall meeting. Most people see Donald Trump only when the camera lights are on him. In Theo’s, he was gracious and friendly. He worked the room and shook every hand. When the lights went on, Anderson Cooper pressed him about the feud with Cruz. “Who cares,” the boss said. “This is the place I’m focused on.” He then laid out his vision for America, and from that moment forward he didn’t mention Iowa to Corey again. Not once.

  The celebration for Trump’s New Hampshire primary election win took place at “the Yard,” the same location as the 2014 Freedom Summit, where Mr. Trump first met Corey. It was not a coincidence. Corey made sure of it. We knew we were going to win that night. The New Hampshire primary ended in a landslide victory for Trump. In the hold room, before he went onstage, someone took a photo of the campaign team—Corey, Hope, George, Michael, and Dan Scavino—with our arms around each other’s shoulders. The whole team knew that Corey’s job depended on a win, and they hadn’t let him down.

  New Hampshire has always been a better indicator of who will be the Republican nominee than Iowa. We could feel the confidence building, and Corey could feel the candidate’s confidence in him growing too. We had a chip on our shoulder. Mr. Trump won the New Hampshire primary by nineteen points. It was our first win against the establishment and for the American people. The feeling was righteous. We wanted more.

  The misfit toys were becoming Transformers.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE DELEGATE HUNTER

  Listen to me, never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut.

  —JIMMY CONWAY, GOODFELLAS

  IT WAS an unusually warm March evening when the Chicago Police Department came up to our hotel room bringing news of a major protest taking place around the venue of our rally that night. We were in the presidential suite of the Trump International Hotel, right on Wabash Avenue, along the banks of the Chicago River. Most nights, you would get a great view of the city from any window in the tower, all sleek, gray metal and clear panes of glass.

  Corey was looking a few blocks in the other direction, where a crowd of a few hundred had gathered around the University of Illinois Pavilion. We were scheduled to begin there at eight o’clock, and about eleven thousand people—not all our friends, as it would turn out—stood inside waiting for Trump. On the television in the hotel suite, Corey could see the crowd inside getting restless. It was close to showtime, and it was getting clearer and clearer as the hours went by that there was trouble brewing.

  Chicago’s interim police superintendent, John Escalante, said things were getting out of hand. And they were only going to get worse.

  He was right. Footage was playing nonstop on every major network. MSNBC was carrying images of people getting unruly inside the pavilion; CNN had these wide aerial shots of mobs bumping up against the barricade outside. It all looked much worse on camera than it did from the window, but still, at first glance, you’d think you were watching dispatches from a riot rather than a rally. We worked closely with the United States S
ecret Service, our on-the-ground police contact, Keith Schiller, and, of course, Mr. Trump before he decided to cancel the event. Corey picked up the phone and called Bobby Peede, our lead advance man for the Chicago event, and told him to say the following: “For the safety of all the tens of thousands of people who have gathered in and around the arena, tonight’s rally will be postponed until another date. Thank you very much for your attendance, and please go in peace.”

  Yeah, right.

  Half the crowd started cheering and jumping around, while the other half hung their heads. A good number of people did manage to go home without incident, but the ones who stayed wanted trouble. Anti-Trump protesters started smacking down signs and pulling the hats off people’s heads. Some of the Trump supporters got just as angry and fought back. Before long, CNN was running an endless B-roll of fistfights and hair-pulling in the arena, cut together with shots of protesters knocking down the barricades. Pundits talked over the footage like the world was ending. They had footage of police on horseback trying to hold the crowds back, small fires burning in garbage cans, guys in masks throwing bricks in the streets.

  Remember the word “optics” from a few chapters back? These are the bad kind.

  The view from the hotel window was getting worse, and the television—with Trump flipping, as he always did, between the same three news stations—showed us only bad things. We were stuck in a room a few miles away from any action, and there was no way we could leave. Mr. Trump would never be intimidated or driven out of town, especially not by people who think they can just shut down speeches by people they don’t agree with. What kind of message would that send? Corey and Hope started thinking about how to spin this for the next morning.