President
Donald Trump has only just completed his first year in the White House,
but he is already looking ahead to a 2020 reelection campaign, tapping
Brad Parscale to get the ball rolling.
The president on Tuesday named former
digital adviser Brad Parscale as campaign manager for his 2020 election
bid, a sign he is prioritizing loyalty as he works to secure his own
political future in what is shaping up to be a bruising 2018 midterm
election cycle for the GOP. The rise of Parscale, largely unknown in
politics until just two years ago, has been inextricably linked to
Trump's own political success.
In a
statement, the Trump campaign said Parscale will lead "advanced
planning" for the 2020 effort, and that the campaign also will be
engaged in the midterm elections.
The
announcement turned heads on Capitol Hill, where Republicans have been
lobbying the president for months to keep focused on the November 2018
contests - with leaders and political aides warning Trump that Democrats
could gain subpoena power over his administration if Republicans lose
the House or Senate.
The
campaign also announced that former deputy campaign manager Michael
Glassner will serve as chief operating officer, while the president's
daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, will serve as senior adviser.
Trump,
whose poll numbers have lagged recent predecessors, has left little
doubt about his intention to seek re-election. He filed the paperwork to
organize his re-election committee on Inauguration Day, held his first
campaign rally on Feb. 18, 2017, and has mused publicly about potential
Democratic challengers.
Parscale
has long been close with the Trump family, a priority for the president
as he begins planning his re-election strategy, according to a person
familiar with campaign planning but not authorized to speak publicly
about private discussions.
The
Austin-based digital consultant, an ally of Trump son-in-law and senior
adviser Jared Kushner, ran the Trump campaign's digital operations in
2016, which included sophisticated social media targeting.
Parscale
entered the Trump orbit in 2011 by doing web design work for the Trump
family - including the president's real estate firm and his son Eric
Trump's charity - before Kushner hired him for the campaign.
Parscale
and Kushner helped craft the 2016 team's digital strategy, which has
been widely credited with helping Trump pull off his upset victory.
Paracale also established close ties with Eric Trump and his wife, Lara,
who in turn was hired by Parscale's Texas-based digital firm.
Working
with Kushner, Parscale and Katie Walsh - then the chief of staff of the
Republican National Committee - served as de-facto campaign managers,
overseeing nearly all aspects of campaign.
In an
interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" last year, Parscale described how a
team that grew to 100 people created 50,000 to 60,000 ads on Facebook
daily to reach different swaths of Trump supporters to maximize support
and online donations.
The
selection of Parscale for the campaign comes as Kushner's tenure in the
White House has been cast into doubt in recent weeks. Chief of staff
John Kelly's crackdown on interim security clearances has called into
question Kushner's ability to access highly classified information. And
Tuesday saw the third announcement in as many months of the departure of
a top Kushner ally in the White House, deputy communications director
Josh Raffel.
Trump
has placed high value on loyalty in his next campaign after feeling
burned by some of his previous campaign staffers, according to multiple
people familiar with his thinking. Trump has denounced and publicly
marginalized Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman, whom he blames
for smearing the president's reputation with his own entanglements in
Russia. Manafort is now facing charges brought by special counsel Robert
Mueller on money laundering and bank fraud relating to his past work on
behalf of the Ukrainian government.
And
Trump later soured on a subsequent campaign force, Steve Bannon, who
drew the president's wrath inside the White House for taking too much of
the spotlight and portraying his family in a negative light in
interviews with "Fire and Fury" author Michael Wolff.
Parscale
himself is not without critics in Trump's factious political circle. A
self-taught coder who wasn't involved in politics until the 2016 effort,
some Trump allies raised doubts about his preparedness to run the
campaign, suggesting he could be the political equivalent of a one-hit
wonder. Parscale did not respond to requests for comment.
The
rollout of Parscale's announcement was not without a hitch. A statement
released Tuesday by the Trump campaign attributed to White House senior
adviser Jared Kushner was in apparent violation of federal law
prohibiting the use of official titles in political work.
The
campaign used Kushner's title and his position as an "assistant to the
president" in its press release announcing Parscale's role. The title
was removed from the copy of the release posted to the campaign website
after questions from The Associated Press.
The
Hatch Act bars government employees from using their official titles in
political work. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday all
senior official and Cabinet secretaries have been briefed on the
prohibition.
The
White House says Kushner offered the statement in his personal capacity:
"The campaign committee inadvertently added his White House title when
it drafted the announcement and subsequently removed the reference when
instructed to do so by the White House."
Trump's
campaign remains based in New York, its headquarters just floors below
the president's penthouse in Trump Tower. Lara Trump has become, in many
ways, the face of the re-election campaign in its early days. She has
appeared in a series of online news videos meant to be an alternative to
mainstream media outlets and, alongside Glassner, has helped steer
Trump's initial fundraising efforts and schedule his signature campaign
rallies.
She
and her husband, key members of Trump's first campaign, are expected to
play an even larger role for 2020. Kushner also has been discussed as
someone to return to leading the re-election effort, according to the
person familiar with campaign strategy.
In a
statement, Eric Trump said Parscale "has our family's complete trust and
is the perfect person to be at the helm of the campaign."
Kushner
also praised Parscale in a statement. "Brad was essential in bringing a
disciplined technology and data-driven approach to how the 2016
campaign was run," he said, adding that Parscale will "help build a
best-in-class campaign."
AP/AFP
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