President Trump announced Wednesday that Bill Stepien would take over as his campaign manager and Brad Parscale would step down from the role.
What we know:
- Parscale’s future with the campaign had been in doubt for weeks. The president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner hired him as Trump’s campaign manager in early 2018, but lagging poll numbers and the Tulsa rally failure spelled doom for Parscale. Leading up to the event, Parscale boasted that over 1 million people signed up to attend and only 6,000 actually came. Trump laid much of the blame on Parscale for the low turnout.
- Trump is no stranger to shaking up his staff. He replaced two campaign managers in his 2016 election effort and four chiefs of staff during his administration. Not to mention that his cabinet has been a revolving door of resignations and new faces. With Stepien taking over as campaign manager, Parscale will stay on as an advisor. Parscale has worked for the Trump organization for the past decade and is a family favorite.
- Stepien joined Trump during his 2016 campaign. After the election, he joined the White House as political director and left in 2018 to work on Trump’s reelection. Like Parscale, Stepien is a close friend of Jared Kushner. Previously, he worked on the presidential campaigns for John McCain and George W. Bush. He was a political aide to former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and was fired during the Bridgegate scandal. He was never charged during the federal investigation, but another former aide said that Christie “just flat out lied about senior staff and Stepien not being involved.”
Even though his campaign is losing steam, Trump is confident the staffing changes will turn things around. Kushner is reportedly a key player in all the staff changes.
