A small reunion is taking place within the Trump campaign.
Amid declining poll numbers and fundraising numbers, former President Donald Trump’s team confirmed to several news outlets that it had hired five new staff members, including some former campaign aides.
The new additions include Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former 2016 campaign manager who was fired from his post but remained close to the former president; Tim Murtaugh, communications director for Trump’s 2020 campaign; and Taylor Budowich, a former senior aide who ran the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc.
Two other new team members are former MAGA Inc. officials Alex Pfeiffer and Alex Bruesewitz.
The new list comes at a critical time for Trump’s campaign.
Since Vice President Kamala Harris suddenly found himself at the top of the Democratic ticket, Trump has struggled to maintain his message or find an effective line of attack that could slow the vice president’s advance. Harris has so far outperformed fundraising numbers and managed to narrow the poll gap with Trump in crucial swing states.
Trump’s allies and supporters expressed this concern, urging the former president to focus on the issues at hand rather than heaping sweeping attacks on his Democratic opponent.
Trump himself expressed frustration at the sudden turn in the fortunes of his campaign, which seemed to be going in his favor for months before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
“It’s unfair that I beat him, and now I have to beat them,” Trump said of Biden and Harris in a phone call with an ally, according to the Washington Post.
Then comes the comfort of familiar and supportive faces.
Trump is clearly not happy with the state of the race, said Evan Siegfried, a Republican strategist, to Business Insider. This can often lead to people close to the candidate getting involved on his behalf.
“When it comes to a situation like this and a candidate is angry, you often bring in people from the candidate’s environment in the election campaign to keep him happy and satisfied,” Siegfried said. “Trump and Lewandowski know each other well, as do the others you bring into the team. It’s a kind of palliative care.”
Lewandowski remained a staunch Trump ally despite being fired from the former president’s campaign in 2016 shortly after the Republican primaries and from his role in a pro-Trump super PAC in 2021.
His ouster in 2016 was followed by several controversies, including allegations that he abused a Breitbart reporter at a campaign rally. The 2016 campaign team denied the allegation, and prosecutors declined to file charges, citing insufficient evidence to convict.
In 2021, a major Trump donor accused Lewandowski of making unwanted sexual advances toward her and inappropriately touching her at a charity dinner in Las Vegas.
Lewandowski was initially charged with a misdemeanor for the incident in 2021 before taking a deal to drop the charges in exchange for taking a pulse training course, doing community service and paying a $1,000 fine, CNN reported.
Despite the controversy that Lewandowski brought with him, Trump remained an open ear for his long-time ally.
A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump co-campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a statement to Politico that the new hires “are all veterans of previous Trump campaigns, and their unmatched experience will help President Trump prosecute the case against Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the most radical campaign team in American history.”
How the new additions will change the campaign’s strategy remains unclear. Lewandowski has been given the role of “senior adviser,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Tara Palmeri of Puck News also reported that Trump is considering a possible comeback for Kellyanne Conway. who was appointed as Trump’s campaign manager in August 2016, becoming the first woman to run a Republican presidential campaign.
Conway was appointed a senior adviser in the White House during Trump’s administration, but left the administration in August 2020. She has since taken a media job at Fox News and in August applied to work as a lobbyist representing Ukrainian interests.
Her new lobbying efforts have raised eyebrows among Trump allies, who believe Conway is exploiting her ties to the former president, a former Trump White House aide told the New York Times.
Still, Trump and his two campaign managers seem open to the idea of bringing Conway back, a Trump adviser told Puck News.
“The president wants to hire her, and some people are upset about that,” the adviser told Puck News. “I think Chris and Susie have come to terms with the fact that there’s been a big change – we have a new nominee and a new vice president – and we have to change, too. They’re both at a point where they’re OK with that.”
In a social media post on Thursday, Trump said he was excited to invite familiar faces from previous campaigns.
“The enthusiasm is high and the management team led by Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita is the best,” Trump wrote, partly in all caps. “Many people want to join the campaign for the final push, some of them from the first two campaigns – and we want as many as possible!”
