Rumors that Donald Trump is considering firing two of his top campaign managers appear to have stemmed from a since changed online article and a quote from a vocal critic of the former president.
On Tuesday, the Daily Mail‘s website published an article that said Trump was angry at his team over the choice of Ohio Senator JD Vance as the Republican‘s 2024 running mate.
In the original version of the story, it was suggested that Trump was considering firing Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, his campaign managers. Disclose.tv, a news aggregator, then cited the report on X, formerly Twitter, telling its 1.3 million followers, “NEW – Trump reportedly in talks to fire campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles — DailyMail.”
The claim seems to have been based on comments made by Anthony Scaramucci, who was fired as Trump’s White House communications director in July 2017 after being in the role for 10 days.
On August 9, Scaramucci, who is now a frequent and outspoken critic of the former president, said on the podcast The Rest Is Politics U.S. that Trump was irate that his campaign had been linked to the Project 2025 agenda and was receiving backlash over Vance being a “terrible, terrible pick” for the vice presidential role.
“He’s lighting people up inside his campaign right now about picking Vance,” Scaramucci said, adding that Trump had “talked to people” about firing LaCivita and Wiles.
“They’re two very extremely talented people. Boy, if he does that, I think that would be a disaster,” Scaramucci added.
The original headline for the Daily Mail story said, “Inside Trump’s ‘meltdown’: Ex-president ‘is lighting up his staff because he’s p*ssed’ about picking JD Vance – as insiders fear he’s going to fire two ‘extremely talented’ campaign gurus.”
The headline was later changed to this: “Former Trump aides claim Donald is in ‘meltdown’ and ‘feels the election is slipping from him’… so is ‘lighting up the campaign.’”
The new version of the story removed the section reporting on Scaramucci’s comments that Trump had discussed firing LaCivita and Wiles and made no other mention of the former president speaking about potentially getting rid of his senior campaign advisers.
However, in the edited version of the online story, a photo of the pair remained with the caption “Trump is reportedly talking to his confidantes about firing his campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles.”
Newsweek has contacted the Daily Mail and Trump’s campaign team for comment via email.
Vance has faced continued criticism since he accepted the role of Trump’s running mate after his previous comments about women, abortion and people without children resurfaced.
The senator has also seen negative favorable ratings, with polls showing he’s the least-liked nonincumbent vice presidential nominee following a party’s convention going back to 1980.
Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, previously denied reports that the former president was reconsidering his choice of running mate.
“President Trump is thrilled with the choice he made with Senator Vance, and they are the perfect team to take back the White House,” Cheung told Newsweek.
He added, “And any reporting to the contrary is nothing but ridiculous fake news from either nonexistent sources or individuals who have no idea what’s going on.”
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