Despite a tumultuous 48 hours within the GOP, Donald Trump’s campaign chairman says everything is just fine.
In an interview Wednesday with Fox News, campaign chairman Paul Manafort was asked to address rumors that the Trump campaign was in turmoil.
“First of all, the candidate is in control of his campaign. That’s No. 1. I’m in control of doing the things that he wants me to do in the campaign,” Manafort said.
He continued: “The turmoil—this is another Hillary Clinton narrative that’s been put out there and that the media is picking up on. … The campaign is in very good shape. We are organized. We are moving forward.”
The Trump campaign has faced extensive backlash following the GOP nominee’s fight with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, parents of a slain Muslim- American war hero, Humayun Khan. Khizr quickly rose to notoriety after the DNC, where he commented on his son and Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and policy proposals.
Trump later released a statement saying that Khizr had “no right” to criticize him. This led to a back-and-forth between the two men, with Khizr claiming Trump was “void of a moral compass” in an interview on Meet the Press and Trump later saying he “doesn’t regret” his statements to the family.
The controversies didn’t stop there, however. In the past 48 hours, Trump’s name has been in the spotlight—and not for the right reasons.
In an interview with the Washington Post, he declined to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in their primary campaigns; he insinuated that women should deal with workplace sexual harassment on their own; he kicked a baby out of his campaign rally; he made allegations that the November election would be “rigged” against him; and his campaign spokesman suggested that Barack Obama and Clinton were responsible for the death of Humayan Khan, who died in 2004 when neither were in the executive branch.
In addition to all that, Trump’s campaign staff was reportedly “suicidal” over the candidates actions.
longtime ally of Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager: “Manafort not challenging Trump anymore. Mailing it in. Staff suicidal.”
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) August 3, 2016
After Harwood, a CNBC correspondent, tweeted that, he said Trump’s campaign spokesman Jason Miller said, “The idea that Paul Manafort’s mailing it in is completely erroneous. Our campaign just finished up our strongest month of fundraising to date, we’re adding talented and experienced staffers on a daily basis, and Mr. Trump’s turning out bigger, more enthusiastic crowds than Hillary Clinton ever could.”
According to the Huffington Post, Manafort also denied Harwood’s claim. However, those close to the campaign say Manafort was frustrated in an inability to monitor Trump.
There have been reports that senior GOP officials are in talks of replacing Trump on the presidential ticket. Among those involved in talks to replace Trump are former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, NBC reports.
“The current race is which of these two is the more unacceptable, because right now neither of them is acceptable,” Gingrich told the Washington Post. “Trump is helping her to win by proving he is more unacceptable than she is.”
On Good Morning America Wednesday, ABC’s Jon Karl also discussed the possibility of replacing Trump on the GOP ticket if he were to drop out, Mediaite reports.
“Senior officials at the party are actively exploring what would happen if Trump dropped out and replaced him on the ballot,” Karl says. “The answer… is they can’t force him out; he would have to go out voluntarily. And it would have to be the 167 members of the RNC through a complicated process to pick a new candidate. And it would have to happen by early September.”
In his interview with Fox, Manafort denied the NBC report.
“This is the first I’m hearing of that,” Manafort says. “The only need we have for intervention is maybe for some media types who keep saying things that aren’t true.”
