Walker campaign refugee and theoretical Trump “establishment” bona fides-boosting Rick Wiley is out at the Trump campaign. Wiley was part of the crew brought on by Paul Manafort to make Donald Trump legit and establishment-friendly. There have been several such rebranding efforts for the Donald in the last many weeks, all of them huge flops as the candidate continues to China Shop Bull his way through everything.
Like the “no saint either” Manafort himself, Wiley was quickly on the outs with Trump lunatics like Corey Lewandowski and the rest of the “Burn Everything Down” crew. On Wednesday night, we find that those differences have in fact become irreconcilable. Trump released the following statement:
Rick Wiley is apparently no longer with the Trump campaign. pic.twitter.com/s1rvALWOji
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) May 26, 2016
Politico reached out to Wiley and other sources.
Wiley did not respond to a phone message seeking comment. And campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks did not respond when asked directly if Wiley was fired or resigned.
But campaign sources told POLITICO it was the latter, and traced the move to Wiley’s row with Giorno, a seasoned Florida campaign consultant who oversaw Trump’s big March 15 win that knocked home-state U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio out of the race.
More from Marc Caputo:
Trump fires Rick Wiley after blowup with top campaign official Karen Giorno https://t.co/JEPq32eL6w w/@kenvogel pic.twitter.com/WImE26i0S6
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) May 26, 2016
Wiley has taken a lot of flack for his work on the Walker campaign, among other things, and has certainly faced criticism. It remains to be seen what this means for Trump’s campaign. For Wiley, it can’t be called good news. This is two major hits in one campaign season.
Still, Rick Wilson hints at what could really be interesting in all this:
Every political reporter in America is going to be trying to bust Rick Wiley's NDA with the Trump people in 3…2…1…
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) May 26, 2016
Looking forward to that.
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