Alex Thomas
Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is currently on a tour promoting his newly-released book, “Let Trump Be Trump,” and on Wednesday, he stopped by “Morning Joe” to chat about his latest endeavor; the conversation got testy.
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The hosts wasted no time taking Lewandowski to task. Immediately starting in with the title, co-host Mika Brzezinski asked him, “Do we really want to let Trump be Trump?” The president’s former aide hit back, a little off-topic but enthusiastic, saying, “I saw my role as a campaign manager as a person who was on an amazing race horse — one of the greatest winners of all time.” Moments later, he criticized Paul Manafort, who took over Trump’s campaign when Lewandowski was ousted.
Less than 2 weeks before our new book is released. Let Trump Be Trump – The Inside Story of His Rise to the Presidency – will make a great Holiday gift. Preorder today at Amazon. pic.twitter.com/MtGBfvDooL
— Corey R. Lewandowski (@CLewandowski_) November 22, 2017
Before long, Roy Moore was brought into the conversation — Trump previously distanced himself from Moore’s campaign before endorsing the Alabama candidate earlier this week. When asked about the president supporting Moore, Lewandowski danced away, answering, “I think the political operation in the White House needs to be significantly overhauled … Let’s get back to the policies of why Donald Trump was elected.” Finally, Lewandowski blasted back, “We have a thing in New Hampshire called street justice. I don’t know Roy Moore, I don’t know the women who have accused him, but I would let the voters decide who they want.”
Lewandowski then moved on to call out “fake news,” saying, “Let’s talk about the paper — half of it’s fake news. Yesterday … I saw a story that the Mueller investigation had subpoenaed the Deutsche records of Donald Trump — fake news, never happened. We saw a story from the ABC news reporter who proudly gave a story that Donald Trump told [Michael] Flynn to do something, which never happened.”
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When asked about Trump campaign mastermind Steve Bannon, Lewandowski answered, “I think what Steve Bannon wants to do is take the Republican party in a direction that is not beholden to the establishment. And What that means for Steve is moving the party away from the Mitch McConnells of the world and moving it closer to the Mike Lees and Ted Cruzes of the world.”
When Brzezinski asked if Trump’s presidency was “amazing,” Lewandowski responded, “It will be. Tax reform has to get done.”
Lewandowski came on board with Trump during the infant stages of the campaign, but in June of 2016 he was tossed out of the group. Since then, he has been a staunch defender of the president; on Tuesday, he visited “The View,” and tensions flared when the hosts got critical of the commander-in-chief. At one point, Lewandowski even bellowed, “He’s a killer! I want a killer as president! I want to make sure that we are the toughest, greatest nation in the world, and that we are safe.”
It’s unclear how much access the former adviser has to Trump these days with Chief of Staff John Kelly choking access to the Oval Office. He still seems to play ball in Washington circles, and over the summer, he was a fixture at the Trump International Hotel at a time when it was serving as a sort of incubator for aspiring West Wing employees.
