Send the Envoy: Inside Corey Lewandowski's Trump Campaign Takeover

“If the guy who just got shot in the head wants his friends around, I’m all for it." The mystique and fear around Lewandowski starts with an ever-changing story on what his job actually entails.

For Trumpworld’s new underboss, the July assassination attempt on the former president’s life turned into the ultimate job opportunity.

At the very least, it cracked open the door just enough for Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, to take the battered crowbar of his political career and wedge his way back into the palace by mid-August.

Since then, his role has vexed political observers and even staffers within the Trump campaign.

Over the past week, four Republicans familiar with discussions on Lewandowski’s new role and who’ve worked alongside him before shared new details with Straight from the Hut on how he’s shaking up the campaign. They said to expect more free wheeling policy speeches slash press conferences to inject Trump back into the news cycle, a return to old school Trumpworld infighting, and that the best way to understand his re-hiring is through the lens of the Butler shooting.

The mystique and fear around Lewandowski starts with his ever-changing story on what his job actually entails, but the traces of his vision for a strategic shift are beginning to take shape.

Trump called Lewandowski his “personal envoy,” but those close to the former president see a much more domineering role emerging from the shadows. 

While a precise job description remains elusive — Lewandowski had initially been telling associates he was coming in as “campaign chairman” — sources in and around the Trump campaign say he’s been brought in to find more cost-effective ways to inject the former president into the news cycle and, perhaps more importantly, act as a security blanket for a “traumatized” Trump, as one adviser put it. 

“If the guy who just got shot in the head wants his friends around, I’m all for it,” a Trump adviser close to the campaign told me. “The boss said ‘all aboard,’ and you make room. You just do.”

Only with the backdrop of the assassinaton could Lewandowski have made his unlikely comeback. The hire also says something about the Trump campaign’s approach to a reshaped race, once again counting on someone to bring back the magic of 2016.

It has led to a strange mood inside Trumpworld. There’s a privately reluctant yet publicly whole hog embrace of Lewandowski, who — despite his past sexual harassment scandals and laying hands on conservative journalist Michelle Fields in 2016 — has waltzed into a newly created power position within the campaign. 

“Look, just having someone question the campaign managers, it has a chilling effect,” a Trump campaign source told Tara Palmeri at Puck last week. “Like someone is watching.” 

Technically, Lewandowski is not the campaign manager. On paper, that job is still shared between Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, a duo widely credited for a more professionally run operation and a semblance of message discipline, particularly when it came to keeping him off of Twitter.

However, the MAGA faithful around the Trump campaign are treating Lewandowski like the new sheriff in town.

One of the clear signs came last Tuesday when Trump delivered a low energy policy speech in Howell, Michigan. The former president is still doing rallies, but three sources familiar with the discussions since Lewandowski took over said his primary focus is getting Trump and surrogates on the road more often, part of his West Wing-esque “let Trump be Trump” ethos — a slogan Lewandowski not only chose for the title of his 2017 book, but one he also kept on a whiteboard in his office during the 2016 campaign.

To get a sense of Lewandowski’s approach to clawing back some momentum from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, look no further than Trump rambling in front of a bunch of cops in a potential violation of campaign finance law. 

“He’s pushing for those events,” a second source familiar with the discussions said, referring to Trump’s rambling press conferences. “He’s pushing for surrogates, and the understanding is he reports directly to President Trump.”

Lewandowski’s arrival also has Trumpworld veterans bracing for the return of more infighting.

“There’s probably shit brewing,” the second Trumpworld source said, “like the old days.”