Donald Trump is replacing his campaign manager Brad Parscale, the controversial figure who has been leading the president’s reelection efforts for the past two years, in a major shake-up of campaign staff.
Parscale will become senior advisor, and Bill Stepien, the deputy campaign manager, will assume the senior role. Trump made the announcement on Facebook Wednesday night, with Twitter temporarily unavailable due to a hack.
Parscale has been under pressure since June after failing to materialize the hundreds of thousands of followers in the Trump campaign in Tulsa that he initially promoted. At the time, the president’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, were reportedly “angry” that Parscale had promised large crowds after only 6,200 appeared.
The shake-up comes when Trump falls behind in the polls, beating his Democratic opponent Joe Biden by 15 points in a national Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday. The Trump administration’s chaotic and ineffective response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 137,000 Americans, and the collapse of the national economy appear to have caused a drop in its approval ratings.
Parscale, who has spearheaded the campaign since February 2018, was recommended for the job by Kushner. He had no political background before joining the Trump campaign, and his tenure has been plagued with accusations that he is unduly profiting from the campaign. Even before joining the Trump 2020 effort, Parscale companies had earned nearly $ 40 million from various Trump election committees, according to a HuffPost analysis of Federal Election Commission submissions.
In a Facebook post Wednesday night, Trump wrote: “I am pleased to announce that Bill Stepien has been promoted to the position of Trump Campaign Manager. Brad Parscale, who has been with me for a long time and has led our tremendous digital and data strategies, will continue in that role. ”
Stepien, who was Trump’s campaign manager in 2016, was previously a top aide to Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and a one-time presidential candidate.
Parscale’s understanding of social media and deceptive clickbait campaigns from the Facebook campaign have made him a notorious figure. In a Washington Post interview, Parscale recalled that during the last election cycle, he told Kushner that if Trump “wants to be the next president, he has to take advantage of Facebook.” Give me the power and I can help you win. “
Like Trump, Parscale often exaggerated his ratings and dramatized his life story. He has described himself as a “Kansas farm boy” when he really grew up in the suburbs.
“He’s an over hyped troll,” Charlie Sykes, the author of How The Right Lost His Head, told the Guardian in January.
Parscale, a fan of The Apprentice, told David Smith of The Guardian in January: “I always saw myself as a kind of CEO, as a business leader. I just wanted to be successful. I always wanted to adapt, but I knew I wanted more. ”
Having earned the trust of Trump and his family, he has also recently sparked the president’s ire. CNN reportedly rebuked Parscale and threatened a lawsuit amid falling polls in April. Trump later denied having yelled at Parscale.
Trump has often grown tired of his campaign managers: He fired two campaign managers in 2016 before installing Kellyanne Conway, who now works as a White House counselor.
When asked for a comment on the staff restructuring, the Trump campaign directed the Guardian to Trump’s Facebook statement. Parscale did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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