Maybe Donald Trump reads the Bible after all — his campaign certainly seems to be taking “as a man sows, so shall he reap” to heart. For months, the Trump project has sown division and anger and bullying as their primary campaign tools; and now they’re reaping what sounds like a colossal rift between top staffers.
The chief combatants appear to be brand new Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort and Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski—and just like the kind of reality show Trump might star in, these combatants are surely gathering supporters to their respective sides. Paul represents the longtime political powerbrokers who’ve only recently joined the Trump effort; Corey’s people are the fringe-weirdos who’ve been on the campaign this whole time.
Various accounts have identified vicious squabbling between the two sides, but as always, it’s impossible to tell what information relating to Donald Trump is actually true. In fact, it’s probably safe to assume that none of it is. Whether it’s Donald’s stance on bathroom bills (which just changed yet again) or gossip about who his staffers hate, nothing about his campaign is ever as it seems.
So on one hand, we have a report that the campaign has shuffled seating arrangements at the Trump Tower headquarters, with Paul on a nice newly-renovated floor and Corey left behind on a floor still under construction.
That’s kind of a delicious detail, but is it true? Or could it be a story that Paul planted to make it sound like Corey is no longer important? Or could it be a story that Corey planted to make it sound like Paul is stealing the campaign away from the people who brought it this far?
And what about the story about Corey getting into a screaming match with a campaign spokeswoman in public? That was reported with widespread glee by everyone who wants to see Trump’s campaign fail — and believe me, I’m one of those people — but according to Politico, that report came after Corey’s enemies had been spreading “rumors about his personal life.”
So was the whole screaming-match story just a well-organized rumor? Maybe some intern hates everyone and is just trying to burn the place to the ground by placing fake stories. Or maybe it was the work of a surrogate who didn’t like being held at arm’s length by the campaign. Or maybe it was the work of former Trump advisor Sam Nunberg, who was fired a few months ago and apparently blames Corey. (If anyone’s to blame for Nunberg being fired, it’s probably Nunberg himself, given that he posted some fairly racist stuff to Facebook.)
Untangling the news reports about who’s scheming against who in Trump’s campaign is like watching Game of Thrones on a scrambled HBO feed. You can interpret a few blobs of dialogue through the wavy lines, but you’re likely to totally misinterpret them since absolutely none of the parties involved can be trusted to tell the truth.
