Fired but still a supporter, Lewandowski lauds Trump
Privy to insider secrets from the campaign that got Donald Trump elected president, Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie paint a picture that would warm the hearts and reinforce the beliefs of the most fervent Trumpsters — and generate derision and rage from presidential detractors.
Have faith, they told the faithful Tuesday night: Trump is doing a masterful job at transforming Washington and bettering the world — even though they see sinister forces from the “deep state,” government holdovers from previous presidents, trying to bring him down.
Don’t worry, they advised, about the turmoil emanating from the White House — which has seen more turnover in top presidential appointees than any previous president, including Tuesday’s ouster of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
Ignore naysayers, they said, who don’t think Trump is presidential. “Washington, D.C., is not going to change Donald Trump. Donald Trump is going to change Washington, D.C., and that’s what the American people want,” Lewandowski said. “Whatever he does is presidential.”
The pair have indisputable insider credentials. Lewandowski was with Trump before he officially became a candidate, serving as his campaign manager through the primaries that won him the Republican nomination — before he was fired.
Bossie was there for the close, helping guide Trump to his victory over Hillary Clinton, as deputy campaign manager. Though neither got jobs in the Trump administration, both said they regularly speak with the president.
And they’re big, effusive defenders of everything Trump, delivering their perspective on what got him elected in their book, “Let Trump Be Trump: The Inside Story of His Rise to the Presidency.”
Tuesday, they held court before more than 120 people for a book promotion event sponsored by the Palm Beach Republican Club — sometimes using expletives of the kind that are rarely, if ever, uttered before groups gathered at the tony Colony Hotel in Palm Beach.
The closest Lewandowski came to faulting Trump’s operation was his suggestion that “the team was not ready to go on Day One” of the presidency.
Lewandowski suggested that the hard work required to keep up with Trump — not chaos in the White House or disagreements within the administration — contributes to the turnover.
“When you see people coming and going I pay no attention to it because it takes a group of people who are fresh and ready to keep up with him and implement his agenda and I think that is the right thing,” he said.
Bossie described Trump as “amazing. His stamina is phenomenal.”
Lewandowski said, “Donald Trump outworks everybody.” To top presidential aides, he said, “The 18 hours a day that you are working on behalf of Mr. Trump or President Trump is not enough. Because he is working more than you.”
Their depiction of Trump is at odds with many reports that he spends hours a day watching television, often reacting to what he sees via Twitter. The website Axios reported in January that much of Trump’s morning is listed on the internal schedule as “executive time,” which means he’s watching TV.
Lewandowski clearly despises Paul Manafort, the part-time Palm Beach Gardens resident who served part of 2016 as Trump’s campaign chairman — and was reportedly involved in pushing Lewandowski out of the campaign. Manafort has been indicted on multiple counts of conspiracy and false statements by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
On Tuesday, Lewandowski called him a “bad dude” and referred to him as “the guy in an orange jumpsuit,” adding that “he’ll be in jail for a long time. Long time.” He also described Manafort as “the guy with all the Botox.”
Lewandowski faulted Republicans in Washington who aren’t helping the president as “weak. They want to get elected. They don’t want to fight.” But, he said, Republicans need to turn out for the midterm elections in November to avoid a Democratic-controlled House that he is sure would vote to impeach the president.
They did acknowledge that Trump isn’t always the easiest guy to work for. “He’s an incredibly warm guy. That’s not to say he didn’t tear our skulls off on more than one occasion,” Bossie said.
At the beginning, Lewandowski said, he didn’t think Trump would become president. When he was interviewed by Trump about going to work for the campaign, he said he told the still-unannounced candidate that he thought there was only a 5 percent chance he’d win.
Nonplussed, Trump replied that he figured it was only a 10 percent chance — and they could negotiate a deal at 7.5 percent, Lewandowski said.
Along with much of the Republican establishment, Lewandowski thought Trump was finished during one of the biggest early controversies of the primary campaign, when the candidate said in July 2015 that he didn’t consider U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a war hero because he liked people who didn’t get captured. (McCain was a prisoner of war for five years and repeatedly beaten in captivity after he was shot down during the Vietnam War.
“I said ‘holy ----, he really did say this,’” Lewandowski recalled.
Reinforcement for Trump came later that night from the president’s wife, Lewandowski said, shifting to a Slovenian accent to quote Melania Trump saying, “Honey, you’re absolutely right.”
Lewandowski praised Vice President Mike Pence, explaining he was the last candidate added to the list Trump considered — and almost didn’t make it.
He said he asked an intermediary to sound out Pence days before he had to present a final list of prospective running mates to Trump. The intermediary responded that “he’d like to pray before he makes a decision. And I said how long is it going to take. Because in Trump World two minutes is like 2,000 years. So does he have like a direct line to God?”
On election night, Bossie recalled, all the predictions were for a Trump loss.
He said about 15 people were watching returns at Trump’s residence in Trump Tower. “Like at my grandfather’s house, we’re watching it on a small TV in the kitchen,” he recalled.
“All of a sudden they start calling these states: boom, boom, boom,” he said. “You could feel the earthquake in Manhattan. That island started to shake just a little bit.”
Writing a victory speech started about midnight, Bossie said, around the dining room table. Trump wouldn’t deliver it, to an audience at the New York Hilton Midtown, until he got a concession call from Clinton. At about 2:30 a.m., he said, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway handed the phone to Trump. It was “Crooked H on the other end of the line.”