'Ding Dong': House Falls On Two Donald Trump Campaign Staffers

Donald Trump's campaign staff is now down two of its top members.

First was Corey Lewandowski, Trump's maligned campaign manager, who was fired in a Monday morning announcement.

“The Donald J. Trump Campaign for President, which has set a historic record in the Republican primary having received almost 14 million votes, has today announced that Corey Lewandowski will no longer be working with the campaign,” Hope Hicks, spokeswoman for Trump's campaign, told the New York Times, which first broke the story.

“The campaign is grateful to Corey for his hard work and dedication and we wish him the best in the future.”

Shortly after the announcement, Michael Caputo, one of Trump's top advisors and director of his New York campaign, seemed to celebrate Lewandowski's ousting with an assist from the Wizard of Oz:

In the incident, caught on video, Michelle Fields, a reporter for the conservative-leaning Breitbart News, leaned in to ask Trump a question as he was exiting the rally. Lewandowski, seemingly doubling as a bodyguard, reached over and grabbed her arm, yanking her backwards.

Fields filed a report with Jupiter Police, which filed simple battery charges against Lewandowski. The Palm Beach County state attorney decided against prosecuting the charge due to a lack of evidence.

A little more than a week after the Florida incident, Lewandowski was seen on video yanking a protester in Arizona out of the crowd by his collar.

The two incidents underscored Lewandowski's role in Trump's organization — less a campaign manager and more a yes-man whose job, in his own words, was to "Let Trump be Trump" as the real estate developer waged his unorthodox primary campaign on his way to becoming the presumptive Republican nominee.

He arrived on the national political scene as largely an unknown, having only worked as a strategist for political firms and in low-level jobs on congressional campaigns. In 2012, he unsuccessfully ran for mayor of a small New Hampshire town.

On the Trump campaign, he was reported to have regularly clashed with Paul Manafort, Trump's chief strategist and a more seasoned political operative.

Lewandowski's firing Monday was seen as Trump shifting toward a general election against Hillary Clinton, whose massive, nationwide campaign operation stands in stark contrast to the skeletal organization Trump employed during the primary season.

Trump may be growing wary of his all-too-unconventional campaign strategy of low staffing and high exposure. His total number of paid staffers has significantly lagged behind those of Clinton and her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders. While this deficit doesn’t appear to have hurt him in the primary race, many observers have argued that a change in tactics, and a drastic boost in campaign employees, is required to win in November.

The firing also comes as Trump has been in a near free fall in national polls lately. Since showing a virtual tie between Trump and Clinton on May 25, a RealClearPolitics average of national polls had Trump trailing by nearly six percentage points.

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