Bill Stepien has become the center of attention after Donald Trump suddenly announced that he was promoting the political operation to manage his 2020 reelection bid.
With less than four months until the election, Stepien faces an unenviable task. Trump is following Joe Biden by double digits nationally and by significant margins in key states of change, according to the latest polls.
As Stepien, formerly Trump’s deputy campaign manager, takes the lead role, he should at least be familiar with being in the public eye.
In 2014, Stepien, 42, caught national attention when he was named and publicly embarrassed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for his role in “Bridgegate,” one of the smallest political scandals that caused suffering in life. real in recent memory.
The saga relates to Christie’s assistants who deliberately close the lanes approaching the George Washington Bridge, which links New Jersey and New York, and is the world’s busiest motorized vehicle bridge. The plan, which worked, was to cause a massive traffic jam in the city of Fort Lee, New Jersey, whose mayor had refused to endorse Christie for reelection.
Disguised as an exercise to facilitate a traffic survey, it resulted in stagnation.
Responding in 2014 to the publication of emails revealing that the traffic jam was a deliberate act of revenge, Christie said he was “embarrassed and humiliated by the conduct of some of the people on my team.”
“I was annoyed by the tone, demeanor and callous indifference shown in emails from my former campaign manager, Bill Stepien,” said Christie at the time.
“And reading that, it made me lose confidence in Bill’s judgment. And you can’t have someone at the top of your political operation that you don’t trust. ”
Christie also asked Stepien to withdraw his nomination to be chairman of the New Jersey Republican Party. It was an ignominious episode in Stepien’s career, who has worked for a number of prominent conservative politicians for the past two decades.
His first contact with presidential politics came in 2004, when he worked on George W. Bush’s reelection campaign in New Hampshire, before serving as national director on John McCain’s 2008 campaign, earning praise from Steve Schmidt, director. of McCain’s campaign.
After McCain lost to Barack Obama, Stepien found his way to Christie and led his campaign for governor.
Long before that, Stepien’s big break came, Politico reported in 2017, when he met Mike DuHaime, a New Jersey political consultant, at an ice skating rink where Stepien worked.
Stepien went on to work with DuHaime in the presidential career of Trump’s confidant and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, and in Lincoln Chafee’s 2006 Senate campaign, prior to his roles with Bush and McCain, according to Politico .
After his public fights with Christie, Stepien finally made it to the Trump campaign. He was hired by the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in 2016, and then served as the White House’s political director.
Stepien later became an advisor to Trump’s re-election effort, before being named campaign vice president in May.
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