More Proof Trump’s Campaign Manager Is A Thug

Corey Lewandowski on CNN's "State of the Union" (screengrab courtesy CNN)
Corey Lewandowski on CNN’s “State of the Union” (screengrab courtesy CNN)

If how you run your campaign is how you will govern, then it has been clear for a long time that we should all be shuddering at the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency. After all, he has proven time and again that he is engaging in an effort to gaslight the nation. But if there was any doubt that Trump was morally unfit for office, recent investigations by BuzzFeed and Politico reveal that the man helming that effort is one of the last people that any competent or halfway decent politician would want within an area code of such a position.

You may know Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as the man who grabbed Breitbart’s Michelle Fields from behind at a press conference earlier this month, and was seen manhandling a protester at a rally in Tucson this past weekend. But it turns out that Lewandowski has a long history of boorish, unprofessional, and borderline criminal behavior.

In the aftermath of the Fields incident, Politico interviewed some 20 people who interacted with Lewandowski both with the Trump campaign and with Americans for Prosperity. While serving as AFP’s East Coast regional director, Lewandowski dressed down a female AFP state official and called her a “c**t” in front of several other AFP staffers. The woman subsequently told several of her colleagues that Lewandowski’s behavior was “very demeaning and insulting.”

Lewandowski went to work for Trump in 2014, while Trump was greasing the wheels for his presidential bid. By the winter of 2015-16, several Trump staffers were so outraged by Lewandowski’s often profane and heavy-handed management style that they tried to stage a mutiny. However, those plans ended when Trump rolled to victory in South Carolina and Nevada.

It wasn’t long before the media felt the same lash that staffers felt. Several reporters told Politico that Lewandowski frequently pushes reporters out of Trump’s way. Several media outlets, as well as the National Press Club, have spoken out about the Trump campaign’s rampant intimidation of journalists. Corroborating this, BuzzFeed revealed that Lewandowski has gotten in the face of CNN’s Noah Gray at least twice, and even went as far as to threaten to have Gray “f**king blacklisted” if he didn’t do as he was told. In other words–the same kind of thuggery we’ve seen throughout this campaign.

It turns out that Lewandowski has a history of inappropriate behavior with female journalists that predates the Fields incident. Several reporters told Politico that Lewandowski that he has a bad habit of making vulgar comments to and about female journalists that were, in the words of one of the targets, “completely inappropriate in a professional setting.” BuzzFeed reported that Lewandowski called a number of female journalists late at night–and on some of those occasions, may have been drunk. He has also expressed a desire to have sex with female journalists covering the Trump campaign. And this thug is supposedly in line to be White House chief of staff in a Trump White House. Now that’s a scary thought.

Within an hour of BuzzFeed’s report going live, the Trump campaign responded in typical fashion–with gaslighting. It described Lewandowski as “a loyal and trusted advisor” to Trump, and hinted that Lewandowski may take BuzzFeed to court for running a blatantly false story. If that’s true, then why didn’t the Trump campaign try to shake down Politico? After all, BuzzFeed largely corroborated Politico’s reporting. I suspect that Trump and Lewandowski know they can’t gaslight Politico, so they’re trying to gaslight BuzzFeed. But it’s not going to work.

If Trump considers this thug fit to run his campaign, it’s yet more proof that Trump is not fit to be dog catcher, let alone president.

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.