Trump’s digital ‘Wizard of Oz’ chosen to lead 2020 campaign

DONALD TRUMP yesterday named Brad Parscale, a little-known digital guru credited with helping win him the White House, as campaign manager for his 2020 re-election bid.

Mr Parscale, a Texas-based web expert, will lead “advanced planning” for the 2020 presidential vote and help with the 2018 midterm elections, according to the Trump campaign.

The decision to name a 42-year-old with limited political experience who lives 1,600 miles from Washington as the campaign’s lead has raised eyebrows, but the bearded Mr Parscale’s central role in the 2016 victory, his close ties to the Trump family and his firsthand knowledge of social media campaigning helps explain the choice.

Mr Parscale, a 6ft 8in former university basketball player, started working for the Trump organisation in 2011 when he was approached about creating a property website.

He went on to create the website for Mr Trump’s presidential bid, taking an initial fee of $1,500 that would eventually become $94million as Mr Parscale led the whole campaign’s digital strategy.

By the end of that White House race, Mr Parscale, based in San Antonio, Texas, had 100 people reporting to him and oversaw the production of between 50,000 and 60,000 Facebook adverts every day. His official campaign title was “digital director”, but insiders reportedly said he effectively became a campaign manager, overseeing online campaigning and fundraising.

A Buzzfeed profile called Mr Parscale “the most influential Trump campaign adviser whose name you’ve never heard”, and CBS News likened him to the “secret sauce, the magic wand person, the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain”.

Mr Parscale has previously talked about how Mr Trump initially doubted the influence of “mumbo-jumbo digital stuff” but lcame to see its importance. His appointment suggests the US president will put social media at the heart of his re-election bid despite controversy over Russia’s online election meddling.

Mr Parscale has appeared fiercely loyal in interviews, telling The Texas Tribune before the 2016 election: “Mr Trump has given me every opportunity in the world, and I would do anything I could to help him win.

“There is no rock I wouldn’t turn over, and no time I wouldn’t put in, to help him win.”

In a separate development, Melania Trump cut ties with a key aide and close friend after it emerged that she had made millions from planning the presidential inauguration ceremony.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff had her contract with the First Lady cancelled last week after records showed that her company had been paid $26million to help plan Mr Trump’s inauguration. Ms Wolkoff, 47, was working as an unpaid senior adviser to the office of the First Lady, since Mr Trump’s election.

Meanwhile, Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law, lost his interim clearance to view the President’s Daily Brief, the highly classified intelligence report which is given to Mr Trump every morning. The decision was taken by White House chief of staff John Kelly.

Mr Kushner has been operating on an interim security clearance for more than a year as his permanent clearance has still not been approved.