Let Trump Be Trump

by Corey R. Lewandowski

  “You’re a political pro? Let me tell you something. I’m a pro at life. I’ve been around a time or two. I know guys like you, with your hair and your skin…”

  And, wait, it gets even better. Part three came when we got back to Trump Tower. A complete annihilation. And Paul’s saying, “I didn’t mean that, sir.”

  I had worked for Mr. Trump for fifteen months, and he had never spoken to me like that. He had ripped my face off, sure, but never for disrespecting him. I never pretended to be smarter than the boss, because I’m not. But Paul did, and he isn’t.

  Though I felt vindicated, the feeling didn’t last long. I immediately got a phone call from Jared telling me that I wasn’t a team player and that I’d thrown Paul under the bus. After his call with the boss, Paul had called Jared and complained about me for what he’d said in Florida. Talk about a little baby. At this time, I believed the family thought I wasn’t a team player and that I was trying to sabotage Paul’s relationship with their father. They didn’t realize it was the other way around. I knew right then that my job had an expiration date.

  The boss begins to give policy speeches—one a week—to show that he’s got gravitas and credentials, and so he can learn the issue, which he ended up knowing cold. He does a foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel. And that’s where I get the call from the reporter who tells me that three sources inside the campaign say I’m going to be fired for embezzling money, that there’s an internal investigation going on. After the speech, we go out to Indiana to do an event. Paul doesn’t come with us. Later it would be reported that Paul stayed behind to meet with the Russian ambassador, I think. We are out there for a couple of days, and then we go out to California. I tell the reporter his sources are liars. I’ve spent thousands of hours with Trump, I say. And he knows I’m a loyal guy, and that I’d never steal his money. And he knows that Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, knows of every dime that leaves the building. And Allen knows that I don’t even have access to write myself a check, that’s not how it works. There are controls in place, and procedures. The real story, I say, is that people inside the campaign are trying to get rid of me. Trying to get the boss to fire me so they can have access to the campaign’s money and allow their friends and the political hacks who never supported Trump in the first place to get rich off him.

  What Paul wanted was to be in charge. He wanted the title, but he wanted it not to help Trump win the election. He wanted the title for Paul. And he got it.

  What’s the old saying? Be careful what you wish for? The day Paul sent out the press release announcing that he’s the campaign chairman has to be one of the worst of his life. Because now the spotlight is directly on him, and Paul never looked good under the lights—I think it’s all the Botox.

  Now it’s May.

  I might be loyal, but I’m not stupid. I know I’m in trouble with the boss. One day we were in Texas—Jared, Brad Parscale, Steven Mnuchin, Eli Miller, the boss, and me. The conversation escapes me, but at some point, Mr. Trump looked at Brad.

  “Who tells you what to do?” he asked. He had put Brad in a tight spot. Though I was the campaign manager still, Jared was much more involved in the digital part of the campaign, which was very important.

  “I have a lot of bosses,” Brad said, trying to sidestep the answer. But there is no sidestepping Trump. He asks you a question, he’ll sit back and stare at you until you give him a real answer. Which is what he did with Brad.

  “I guess it’s Jared,” Brad said finally. “He knows how to work people better.”

  “You don’t have to listen to Corey anymore,” Mr. Trump said. “He’s no longer your boss.”

  The cut was deep, but it was only one of a thousand.

  The Indiana primary is on the third of May. We go out with Bobby Knight and Lou Holtz, and we win Indiana, then Nebraska, then West Virginia. Still, every Tuesday feels to me like a game of “Is Corey going to survive?” If we win, Corey stays. If we lose, it’s “See? We told you so.”

  June brings primaries in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota. We win some of those. Candidate Trump won thirty-eight times, by all accounts a record for any candidate in a contested primary season in the history of modern politics. But by Father’s Day, I know it doesn’t matter anymore. Soon, I’ll be going home.

  On June 20, Corey walked into his office on the fifth floor of Trump Tower at six a.m. just like he did every morning that he was in New York. His habit was to watch the morning shows: Morning Joe, New Day on CNN, and Fox & Friends, which he did. He then made a couple of conference calls and called a staff meeting. It was a Monday, which meant the 9:30 a.m. “family meeting” on the twenty-fifth floor. Every week, the senior staff would brief Mr. Trump’s grown children and son-in-law on the happenings of the campaign. Along with Donald Jr., Ivanka, Eric, and Jared Kushner, those meetings usually included Hope Hicks, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates (who was Paul’s partner in crime), and Corey.

  When Corey walked into his office, Don Jr. asked if they could talk privately. They walked the fifteen steps down the hall to a conference room, in which sat Matt Calamari and Michael Cohen.

  With Matt and Michael sitting there, it should have been obvious to him what was about to happen. Still, when Don Jr. started reciting the exit lines, he was stunned.

  “Things aren’t working out, Corey,” he said. “There have been complaints from the staff, and you’ve become a distraction.”

  Corey pushed back some and asked for specifics, which Don Jr. didn’t offer. All the younger Trump said was that Corey was terminated effective immediately. Those words felt like a punch in the stomach. For the last eighteen months, he’d given everything to the campaign and Mr. Trump. He’d worked eighteen-hour days, seven days a week. He was practically a stranger to his wife and children, missing birthdays, recitals, and sporting events. He’d worked for nearly two weeks when he should have been in the hospital. He hadn’t been to a Red Sox game in over a year. And he did a great job. He was the person who helped Donald Trump from the beginning develop and execute the strategy to win thirty-eight primaries and caucuses, and helped Mr. Trump receive more votes than any GOP candidate in history, all on a shoestring budget when every political pundit in the country, and members of his own family, said it couldn’t be done. Yes, he was acutely aware that none of that success would have happened if not for Donald Trump. But, with absolute certainty, he believed that Donald Trump couldn’t have found a better campaign manager than him.

  Corey’s thoughts went back to the night when Mr. Trump invited Ivanka and Jared, along with Melania, Barron, Tiffany, and Melania’s parents onstage. The rally was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, at the end of November 2015. Jared wore one of those black puffy vests and was the last to come onto the stage to join his wife and the others. He looked reluctant to do so. It was the first time any of Mr. Trump’s family had been involved in the campaign. By then, Corey had been on the road with the candidate for six straight months and had run the campaign for eleven.

  Back at Trump Tower, swept up in the emotion of the moment, and with thoughts ricocheting around his brain, Corey didn’t at first pay attention to his phone pinging from inside his pocket. The campaign had already sent out the press release of his firing. It was sent before they even told him he was being fired. Paul Manafort had hit the send button, culminating his rise to the top of the Trump campaign—a rise that would last a mere eight weeks and one day, until it was reported that he’d received millions of dollars from Russians in an “off the books” ledger.

  Matt Calamari escorted Corey down to his office to pick up some personal effects. “Whoa, is dat your computer?” He then walked him out of the building.

  Out on the sidewalk, Corey didn’t know what to do. He began to walk to the apartment on Sixty-First Street. On the way, he took out his phone and saw that he had hundreds of media requests. He was breaking news on every major network. He scrolled to the bos
s’s number, tapped it.

  “Hey, Cor, what’s up,” Mr. Trump said.

  “Sir. I couldn’t have worked any harder for you, and I’m sorry if I disappointed you, I don’t know what else I could have done,” Corey said.

  “Yeah, they’ve been killing us,” the boss said. “They’ve been killing us, and they hate you, and they hate me.”

  Back in the brownstone apartment, Corey took off his suit and put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Fuck it, he thought, I’m going to New Hampshire. Then Governor Rick Scott called. Then Chris Christie.

  “Need any help?” the governor of New Jersey asked.

  Corey likes and respects Governor Chris.

  “Nah, I’m all set.”

  “You know I’m never going to be vice president now,” the governor said. One of Corey’s jobs on the campaign had been overseeing the vice president selection list.

  The governor suggested that Corey make a statement. He took the advice and called Christie Bear, a CNN booker.

  “Hey Christie, is Dana Bash around? I’d like to come over and talk with her.”

  “We’ll have a car there in three minutes,” the booker said.

  The producer did it one better: she made it from CNN’s studio in Columbus Circle to Sixty-First and Lexington Avenue in heels in less time than it took Corey to put his suit and tie back on.

  It was quite the “get” for Dana Bash and CNN, and the studio was buzzing by the time Corey arrived, mostly because people thought that he would turn on his ex-boss. After all, Trump had unceremoniously dumped him, hadn’t he? But those who expected him to settle a score didn’t know Corey Lewandowski. They didn’t know he was an altar boy so long that he was still one when he was driving to mass during the last years he served. They didn’t know his idol growing up was his grandfather, a union printer for forty-two years. They didn’t know he grew up poor in Lowell, where loyalty meant more than money. They didn’t know that he’d worked every job he ever had like his life depended on it. What they got that day on CNN is what Corey was and still is: a man devoted to Donald Trump, even after the candidate’s family fired him.

  His appearance was so heartfelt and faithful, Trump called immediately afterward and told him how proud he was of him.

  There are those who will argue that firing Corey was the right move at the time. Plenty would say that. The mainstream press was saying he wasn’t qualified for the job even as his candidate won state primary after state primary. He won more primary votes than any Republican candidate in history, including Ronald Reagan and Dwight D. Eisenhower. And as the boss liked to say, Ike won World War II! Yes, Corey did have a candidate like no other, a political phenomenon who seemed to defy the laws of gravity and certainly of convention. “It was 99 percent Trump and 1 percent campaign,” Corey said often. But another campaign manager would’ve tried to make the candidate into something he wasn’t.

  In hindsight, Corey still doesn’t know if the day he was fired was the worst or the best of his life. Dave had some experience with getting fired, which he shared with his friend. When Newt Gingrich was House Speaker, he fired Dave as the chief investigator on the House’s government reform and oversight committee. Dave had felt the same way Corey did when it happened. But things worked out just fine. And he assured Corey they would for him too.

  Corey has certainly had opportunities since then that he couldn’t have imagined.

  And he can’t remember whether it was that very day, perhaps when he was packing his bag, or whether the thought came to him days later. But at some point, he had the overwhelming feeling that though his role might have changed, his objective stayed the same.

  He was going to do everything he could to get Donald J. Trump elected president of the United States. And that was the fundamental difference between the Trump campaign’s former manager and the “chairman” who was now in control.

  CHAPTER 9

  THURSTON HOWELL III

  To all the politicians, donors, and special interests, hear these words from me today: There is only one core issue in the immigration debate and it is this: the well-being of the American people. Nothing even comes a close second.”

  —DONALD J. TRUMP, AUGUST 31, 2016

  ALL AMERICANS ever hear about from the fake news media is the plight of people who entered this country illegally. They’re told how hard they work, how dangerous the journey was, how they face challenges most Americans who were born here or entered legally don’t. It doesn’t occur to people who buy this to consider there are many more people born in this country or who immigrated legally who face all the same challenges. Lower-income Americans are struggling and uncontrolled borders are making it harder on them, not easier.

  Listening to the media, you would think that immigration has no effect on the existing US population. But it does. And while the boss certainly has sympathy for people in countries without the opportunities the United States might offer them, that sympathy doesn’t outweigh his equal sympathy and first duty to the people already living in this country. That’s what putting “America first” means.

  But America First is contrary to the special interests of a lot of deep-pocketed multibillion-dollar multinational corporations that owe their first allegiance to their stockholders. And if they can drive their labor costs down with workers taking advantage of porous borders, they are all too happy to do so. That’s just one reason you saw most of the corporate money go to Hillary Clinton during the campaign.

  The other special interest opposed to America First is the Democratic Party. It’s no secret that immigrants—legal and illegal—overwhelmingly vote Democrat. So the Democratic Party is always pushing for lax immigration rules and enforcement, and for amnesty for those who come here illegally. Then they argue for a “path to citizenship” for illegals, hoping to acquire millions of new Democratic voters by ignoring our laws.

  This is the party that holds itself up as the champion of low- and middle-income earners.

  Remember what the boss said way back in 1988 about getting the best response from taxi drivers and workers? That’s because he really cares about those people, and they know it. You can’t fake that, not with them. Everyday people are too street-smart. If you really care about the people who drive the taxis, pour the concrete, wire your dishwasher, or cut your lawn, then you must care about immigration.

  At one time, US immigration policy was based on the same principle as that of virtually every other nation: to admit only people who will be a net positive for the country as a whole.

  So, the boss is tough on immigration enforcement when it comes to our borders. But immigration into the campaign during the last few months before the election was another story altogether.

  The boss was furious. On the table in front of him in the residence in Trump Tower was that day’s copy of the New York Times. It was Saturday, August 13. Mr. Trump took his flip phone out of his pocket and scrolled to Corey’s number.

  “Who do you think leaked it?”

  “Well, there were only five people at the meeting, and one of them was you,” Corey said. “If you fire any one of the other four, you have a 25 percent chance to be right.”

  The Times’s reporters Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman wrote the story. They led it with a secret meeting at Trump Tower. Ivanka, Jared, Chris Christie, Jason Miller, and Paul Manafort were in the room, according to “unnamed sources.” Those sources said that the meeting’s participants pled with Trump to change his ways, to use the teleprompter, and stay on message.

  The rest of the story chronicled the chaos in the campaign and the plunging poll numbers.

  With eighty-six days left to Election Day, the Trump campaign was down double digits to Hillary in national polls, and the numbers were even worse in key battleground states. There was no floor. A trapdoor could open at any moment, and Trump could drop to numbers not seen since Michael Dukakis.

  “What do you think I should do?” Trump asked his former campaign manager.

 
; At the time, Dave, Susan, and their kids were on vacation in Disney World. Maggie, their youngest, was five going on six, and Lily was ten—perfect ages for Disney. And there was plenty to do there for Griffin and Isabella too: Space Mountain, watching the nighttime light shows, and doing Epcot.

  Dave had earned the time off. Not only was he running Citizens United, but he was also heading up an anti-Clinton super PAC funded by the billionaire Bob Mercer and his daughter Rebekah. He had taken the job when Kellyanne had left the super PAC to join the Trump campaign.

  By then, Kellyanne was Dave’s only real connection to the campaign. When Don Jr. fired Corey, Dave’s influence on the campaign became limited.

  If we had any doubts we were on the outs, that notion was confirmed at the Republican convention. Paul Manafort had almost entirely sealed us off. Hope, Dan Scavino, George, and other members of the campaign team wouldn’t even want to be seen talking to either of us for fear of reprisal from Paul. And Paul went out of his way to make life difficult for us, especially for Corey. With space in Cleveland at a premium, he had promised Corey he’d save a room for him at the Westin, where the campaign was staying. When Corey got to the front desk with his bags, the clerk told him there was no reservation under his name. Corey ended up staying at one of those suite hotels a half hour out of town with his CNN colleagues. And Dave stayed with the Maryland delegation in Independence, Ohio, twenty minutes from the convention center. Even our access in the convention hall was limited. We were issued only floor credentials. Dave brought Susan and the four kids but couldn’t get tickets for them. A couple of times, we tried to visit the candidate’s family box at Quicken Loans Arena. One time, we waved up to Michael Glassner, Corey’s former deputy. But instead of him inviting us up, Glassner came down to the floor. Don McGahn, however, came over and in the middle of the convention floor gave us big hugs and thanked us for all the work we put into the campaign. It was a sign of true class.