Senior officials directing Donald Trump’s election campaign were brimming with confidence when incumbent Joe Biden announced his withdrawal as the Democratic nominee last month.
But the former president’s camp are now quaking in their collective boots after realizing Kamala Harris is not quite the pushover they expected she would be, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Chief target of the complaints are ‘grifters,’ ‘hucksters,’ ‘profiteers’ and ‘cranks’ – to use a few of the colorful terms dropped by GOP officials and operatives during interviews with DailyMail.com last week.
They are accused of damaging his campaign with their incompetence and crude efforts to exploit their close ties to him, whether real or imaginary, for personal profit.
Donald Trump’s campaign is trembling with fear after realizing his new opponent Kamala Harris does not promise to be the pushover they all thought she would be, DailyMail.com can reveal
The growing fears about Trump’s presidential prospects in the MAGA-sphere have been matched by increased feuding and blame-casting among his close circle of advisors and associates who have been known to consist of controversial characters. Pictured: Trump sitting with his son Don Jr, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Sergio Gor, and Charlie Kirk in 2019
Eight years ago, when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, a lot of talented campaign professionals helped get him elected, one grizzled Republican campaign veteran told DailyMail.com.
‘He’s still got a lot of talented people around him in 2024,’ the operative said.
‘But their main talent is getting rich.’
Trump’s teams of political advisors and associates have always consisted of controversial characters, including Roger Stone, an unofficial advisor during his run against Clinton eight years ago who’s been known as a notorious black bag operator since he worked for President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign in 1972.
Stone only managed to avoid a 40-month prison stretch for witness tampering, making false statements, and otherwise impeding Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russiagate investigation because Trump commuted his sentence days before he was scheduled to report to prison.
Then there was Steve Bannon, the CEO of Trump’s 2016 campaign and first White House chief strategist, who is currently federal inmate number 05635-509 in FCI Danbury in Connecticut where he been since July.
He is scheduled for release a week before election day.
He is serving a four-month stretch behind bars for defying a subpoena issued by a Congressional committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 riots at the US Capitol.
Corey Lewandowski, who helmed Trump’s 2016 campaign, has managed to return to the team for the former president’s 2024 bid, despite being fired twice and gaining a reputation for being a loose cannon
Trump’s teams of political advisors and associates have always consisted of controversial characters, including Roger Stone (left) who narrowly avoided serving time in prison, and Steve Bannon (right), the CEO of Trump’s 2016 campaign and first White House chief strategist, who is currently serving a four-month sentence at FCI Danbury in Connecticut
Bannon still faces charges for scheming to defraud donors to a private project to build a wall along the southern border.
One well-connected Washington operator who had good connections to Trump’s administration during its early days said the former president inevitably attracted a disproportionate share of ‘oddballs’ into his orbit due to his own eccentric personality and unconventional style.
‘There were always a lot of people hanging around who would tell you they knew a guy who knew another guy who could get you a meeting with Trump,’ he recalled.
‘Some of them really had connections and could get you that meeting, but a lot of them were hustlers looking to make a buck.’
The biggest change from 2016, according to GOP insiders interviewed by DailyMail.com, is that back then the dodgier figures in Trump’s entourage were counterbalanced by a large contingent of experienced campaign professionals.
Since then, the share of corner-cutting, scandal-prone, profit-hungry confederates in Trump’s camp steadily grew as many of his more conventional associates departed after growing disenchanted with him.
The problem has been compounded by the former’s president’s deep loyalty to his closest associates, which is typically a positive quality in friendships but less often the case with political relationships.
Several sources referred by way of example to Trump’s recent decision to bring his first 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski back into the fold in as a top advisor as a sign of the urgency he’s feeling about the need to reverse Harris’s campaign momentum, and as the type of hires he makes that could make matters worse.
While Lewandowski is known to be extremely dedicated to Trump and relentlessly hardworking, he’s equally notorious for driving away important staffers because he’s rude and overbearing, and for his long track record of public buffoonery.
Trump has already fired Lewandowski twice, first as his campaign manager after he was accused of assaulting a female reporter.
Trump has since brought back former staffers including Peter Navarro, his former trade advisor who was invited to address the Republican National Convention in July, the day he was released from a Miami prison
A main focus of complaints is Turning Point USA director Charlie Kirk, 30, (left) who has been criticized for not doing anything of ‘long-term value’. Sergio Gor (right) a conservative operative and Trump fundraiser, has been widely known in campaign circles for his chronic efforts to monetize his connection to the former president and his family
Trump’s recent decision to bring his first 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski back into the fold in as a top advisor as a sign of the urgency he’s feeling about the need to reverse Harris’s campaign momentum, despite his long track record of public buffoonery
He was let go again in 2021 when he was directing a Super PAC raising money for the former president when he got drunk at a charity event for a group that combats alcohol and drug abuse, and crudely hit on the wife of a prominent donor who he bragged to about his penis size.
Peter Navarro, a trade advisor during the Trump administration, was invited to address the Republican National Convention on July 17, the day he was released from a Miami prison after serving four months for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the riot at the US Capitol in 2021 and pledged eternal loyalty to the ex-president.
When he worked at the White House, Navarro regularly put his foot in his mouth, which came as no surprise to his former political colleagues in California.
In a 2020 story in Politico, Rob Stutzman, a former advisor to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, called him a prominent inhabitant of the ‘island of misfits that make up the Trump White House.’
Larry Remer, who ran two of Navarro’s five failed campaigns for public office in San Diego, labeled him ‘the biggest a**hole I’ve ever known.’
Sergio Gor, a conservative operative and Trump fundraiser, is widely known in campaign circles for his chronic efforts to monetize his connection to the former president and his family.
A longtime aide to Republican Senator Rand Paul, Gor took a top job with a major Trump campaign fundraising outfit in 2020.
Following Trump’s defeat in that year’s election, Gor and Donald Trump Jr. became partners in Winning Team Publishing, whose first release was ‘Our Journey Together,’ a coffee table book of photos of Trump Sr, in 2022.
A special edition autographed by the former president went for $999 and came with the classic red ‘Make America Great Again’ cap and other MAGA memorabilia.
Over the past four years, Republican political campaigns and committees have paid $1.5million to two companies controlled by Gor, The Daily Beast reported earlier this year.
A one-time top Trump aide, Bannon is serving time behind bars for defying a subpoena issued in the investigation of the January 6, 2021 riots. He is scheduled for release a week before election day
Russian-American Boris Epshteyn, who Bannon once labeled Trump’s ‘wartime consigliere’, is facing charges himself for allegedly helping orchestrate a scheme in Arizona as part of Trump’s broader effort to reverse the results of the 2020 election
In January, Gor took the helm as CEO of a new Trump Super PAC called ‘Right for America,’ which multiple sources who spoke to DailyMail.com mocked as a crude money play.
‘Any time I see Sergio’s involved in a project, I assume there’s a good chance it’s a scam,’ said one, a Republican campaign veteran.
Trash magnate Anthony Lomangino and Conair Corporation heir Lee Rizzuto Jr., who are both close to Trump and regulars at Mar-a-Lago, sit on the Super PAC’s board.
The pair provided a combined $4.25million to Right for America as of June 30, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show. Right for America’s total receipts as of that day came to $38.6million.
Of that amount, the Super PAC, which once pledged to spend ‘tens of millions of dollars’ to support Trump’s 2024 run, only dispensed $169,919.
Much of that went to politically wired consulting firms. Roughly $15,000 went to cover travel by Gor and a similar amount was paid to Mar-a-Lago for use as an event space and catering services.
How much money Right for America eventually raises this year and where it goes won’t be fully known until next year when it files its final disclosure report for 2024 to the FEC.
‘What is Right for America going to do that’s different or better or smarter than all the other Super PACs already raising money for Trump?’ asked an experienced Republican campaign consultant.
‘Benefiting the people who created and run it is its only discernible purpose.’
Another Trump-controlled PAC, Save America, raises money to pay legal defense bills for the former president and his close allies.
It recently shelled out some $60million to the law firm of Russian-American Boris Epshteyn, who Bannon once labeled Trump’s ‘wartime consigliere’.
Epshteyn is facing charges himself for allegedly helping orchestrate a scheme in Arizona as part of Trump’s broader effort to reverse his defeat to Biden in the 2020 election.
Though ‘lacking any track record as a political strategist,’ Epshteyn ‘made more than $1.1million in the past two years for providing advice to the campaigns of Republican candidates, many of whom believed he could be a conduit to Mr. Trump,’ said a 2023 New York Times article.
‘Epshteyn is a crackpot, I can’t believe he’s still around,’ said a dyed-in-the-wool right-wing Republican operator who speaks regularly to top campaign officials.
A main focus of complaints is Charlie Kirk, the 30-year-old director of the conservative youth group Turning Point USA, which has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to promote Trump, his political allies, and a variety of MAGA-friendly causes.
This year Kirk – who has become immensely wealthy in the process and lives in an Arizona estate worth millions on the grounds of a private country club – announced his group was looking to raise the astronomic sum of $108million to run field campaigns and get-out-the-vote drives for Trump in swing states, despite having little to show for its past lavishly-funded efforts in those areas.
Donald Trump campaign senior advisor Corey Lewandowski spoke about the role he will play now that he is joining the operation. Asked about his title, he quipped it was ‘something like that, I guess’
‘Charlie is useless,’ said an experienced GOP campaign operative who’s familiar with his work.
‘Turning Point spends a lot of money to host events and he travels around the country getting into fights at colleges, so he gets attention, but nothing he does is of long-term value.’
WinRed, a GOP fundraising platform launched in 2019 by the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee (RNC), and the party’s Senate and House campaign committees, is also singled out as a particularly brazen example of political profiteering.
Josh Kushner – the younger brother of Trump’s son-in-law and former presidential senior advisor Jared Kushner who reportedly was personally involved in the decision to establish WinRed – owns a stake in WinRed through his firm Thrive Capital.
‘WinRed prints money but that’s not because it’s a great fundraising platform,’ said the GOP consultant.
‘In fact, it’s a terrible platform that charges ridiculously high fees and the only reason anyone uses it is because they were ordered to by the Trump campaign, the RNC and its other founders.’
‘During the Republican presidential primary debates this year, you couldn’t get on the stage unless you used WinRed,’ he added.
With time running short between now and Election Day, and ideas about how to reverse Harris’s momentum in short supply, the detrimental collective impact caused by the growing flock of hangers-on and camp followers in Trump’s orbit has become much more evident, said the GOP campaign veteran.
‘Trump is a superstar and when things are going well, his side wins whether his teammates are playing well or not,’ he explained.
‘That’s hard to know because he’s so good, he hides their deficiencies,’ said the source.
‘You only find out if the people around him are talented when he gets hurt, which is the situation we’re in now, and what we’re finding out now is that most of them aren’t.’
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk