Growing pains for a sudden front-runner
As presidential hopeful Trump tries to steer into deeper waters, campaign hits a storm
Donald Trump was ensconced inside his Manhattan skyscraper early last week, preparing for his first presidential debate. The celebrity billionaire wanted to turn the summer fling that had catapulted him to the front of the Republican pack into a candidacy capable of winning the White House — and his longtime adviser Roger Stone had a plan.
Don’t get dragged down by petty attacks, Stone counseled Trump, but begin offering an agenda focused on the economy and hammer home what makes you a singular candidate. In a 13-page memo to Trump, Stone urged him to state that “the system is rigged against the citizens” and that he is the lone candidate “who cannot be bought.”
“A builder, an entrepreneur and a capitalist versus a bunch of politicians who are clearly part of the problem” is how Stone framed the contest in the document, obtained by The Washington Post from a Republican working with the campaign. The memo suggested a sound bite: “I’m running because when I look at this field — all perfectly nice people — I know that none of them could ever run one of my companies. They are not entrepreneurs.”
But Trump did not heed the advice. Instead, after briefly flipping through the papers, he decided to wing it — just as he had vowed to do. In a debate watched by a cable-news-record 24 million Americans, Trump followed his gut, and the theater that followed was defined more by outbursts than by substance — most memorably when he sparred with moderator Megyn Kelly over his past incendiary comments about women.
“I don’t follow any memo, actually, because no memo can prepare you for what goes on in these campaigns or at these debates,” Trump said on Sunday in an interview with The Post. “I’ve got to be me. That’s why I am where I am, leading the polls. It’s not because of memos.”
Defining friction
Trump’s improvisations have created the defining friction in his unorthodox universe: He has struggled to expand his campaign from one appealing to an angry fraction of the electorate into a lasting, durable enterprise that can secure the presidency.
The result is a staff shake-up at the highest levels. The turbulent week ended with Stone, a political confidant to Trump since the 1980s, departing under uncertain terms.
On Sunday, Trump was at the center of another swirling storm. GOP leaders voiced outrage at his attacks on Kelly.
In rollicking television interviews, Trump defended himself and the long-term viability of his bid.
Ed Rollins, a veteran GOP consultant who is close to some of Trump’s advisers, said: “A campaign is not a reality TV show. It’s a very tough exercise. You don’t have the privilege of just saying, ‘I’m a billionaire, I’m going to build a wall and screw you.’ Can you take his campaign right now and fix it and make it about substance? Could he be a credible candidate? Possibly.”
More difficult phase
Trump is entering a new and likely more difficult phase in which questions about his temperament and scrutiny of his past and current positions will mount. He wants to turn the page, vowing in the interview to further professionalize his operation and roll out policy details that will add weight to his soaring rhetoric.
“We’re getting the best” operatives, Trump said. “I’m going to come out with more positions. Look, I already have done that on many issues,” he added.
Republican policy minds have been offering assistance. Economist Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation said he reached out a few weeks ago by email to Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, offering to help map out a tax plan.
But Moore said he never got a response. “A lot of people haven’t been able to connect,” he said.
Lewandowski said on Sunday: “Steve might have been using my old account. If I didn’t email back, I meant no slight to Steve Moore.”
“We’re going to release policy statements on (Trump’s) time frame, not anyone else’s,” Lewandowski said.
Economist Larry Kudlow, a former CNBC host and an acquaintance of Stone for decades, said that he heard in mid-June from Stone that Trump was resisting Stone’s input and holding off on releasing policy planks.
“He emailed me after I wrote a column wondering whether Trump would run as a supplysider,” Kudlow recalled in an interview. “Roger wrote back that he’d been trying to get that message in with Trump but was being blocked.”
For weeks inside Trump’s campaign, tensions have simmered between Lewandowski — a youthful and hard-charging strategist hired this year after directing state political projects for Americans for Prosperity, a group backed by industrialists Charles and David Koch — and Stone and other Trump loyalists.
After Lewandowski successfully navigated Trump’s labyrinth of employees, business partners, political whisperers and family members to consolidate power, Trump granted him full authority. Lewandowski is regularly at Trump’s side aboard his “Trump”-emblazoned Boeing 757 and advises him before media interviews.
Intense experience
Working for Trump is an intense experience, based on The Post’s observations of the staff at work with the candidate. Trump constantly monitors Twitter, cable news channels, websites, newspapers and magazines. He keeps freshly updated binders of articles about his campaign in his office and on his plane. The latest barb or headline is his political oxygen.
During stressful episodes, the campaign endures Trump’s mood swings and acts on his impulses. The candidate is also a social animal who treats those around him like family. He warmly shares meals with aides and asks them about their dating lives or children.
Shortly before Trump launched his campaign, Lewandowski met with Rollins for drinks at the 21 Club in New York, where Rollins offered advice about working for a billionaire candidate. In 1992, Rollins managed businessman Ross Perot’s independent presidential campaign.
“I’ve been around billionaires, and when it’s their money, they don’t want to listen,” Rollins said. “Perot said to me, ‘I’ll give you $150 million and you spend whatever it takes,’ but he took out his little checkbook and fought over everything we spent. I suspect Trump is the same way.”
“I don’t follow any memo, actually, because no memo can prepare you for what goes on in these campaigns or at these debates. I’ve got to be me. That’s why I am where I am, leading the polls.” Donald Trump