Donald Trump has angrily parted ways with the aide who was responsible for planning and producing hundreds of campaign rallies.
The president told his security director Keith Schiller to inform George Gigicos following an Arizona rally last Tuesday that he would never stage another event for him.
Bloomberg reported that Trump was furious about the size of the crowd that turned up to see him at the Phoenix Convention Center.
A White House official told DailyMail.com that the president was angry when he learned that the venue’s cavernous main hall had been split in two by a giant wall, leaving only half of the space for his audience.
Donald Trump has cut ties with George Gigicos, his scheduling and advance director, over his disappointment with the crowd size at last week’s Phoenix, Arizona rally
The Phoenix Convention Center’s cavernous main space was split in two, leaving only half of it for Trump’s crowd to fill. The venue is pictured nearly three hours before the rally, as the audience (left) began to enter
By the time the rally began, about 10,000 people were present – but Trump could see the far corners of the space were empty
About 10,000 people filled most of it, but the hall’s far corners remained empty – and in Trump’s line of sight from his podium.
The president later claimed on Twitter that the real number was 15,000.
Before he spoke, Trump watched TV backstage and saw cable news footage of the convention center filling up slowly.
‘Yes, he was angry. Yes, he took it out on George,’ the official said Tuesday.
Gigicos was the White House Scheduling and Advance Director until the end of July when he left the administration to return to a private campaign consultancy.
But his claim to fame was staging Trump’s wild and often raucous presidential campaign rallies, which he supervised day after day.
Gigicos was also responsible for compiling the pre-rally playlist of songs that became Trump’s musical calling card – from the Rolling Stones’ ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ to Puccini’s torch-song aria ‘Nessum Dorma.’
Trump often blamed him when logistics didn’t work out as planned.
The president boomed ‘What a crowd!’ as he came to the stage in Arizona
The crowd numbered about 10,000 but Trump claimed on Twitter that the number was higher
When his microphone had problems at a January 2016 rally in Pensacola, Florida, he ranted: ‘The stupid mic keeps popping! Do you hear that, George? Don’t pay them! Don’t pay them!’
By Monday Trump was boasting that the Phoenix crowd was gigantic.
‘You saw the massive crowd we had,’ he told reporters during a White House joint press conference with Finland’s president.
Gigicos was one of the longest-serving aides in Trump’s orbit.
Minutes after he blasted Gigicos backstage, he strode to the microphone and bellowed: ‘Wow, what a crowd! What a crowd!’
‘A lot of people in here, a lot of people pouring right now,’ Trump said. ‘They can get them in. Whatever you can do, fire marshals, we’ll appreciate it.’