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Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest. I’m Tara Palmeri.
In today’s issue, further reporting from the underbelly of Trumpworld, where the battle for power between Corey Lewandowski and Chris LaCivita is getting more intense by the day. The latest wedge between the guys concerns Elon Musk’s super PAC, American PAC, which numerous campaign staffers fear is simply a reincarnation of Ron DeSantis’s failed Never Back Down, helmed by former DeSantis lieutenants Phil Cox and Generra Peck. More on that, below the fold.
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
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| The median tenure of railroaders – 13 years – is more than three times higher than those who work in the private sector. With pathways to lifelong careers, long-term job stability and professional growth opportunities, it’s easy to see why being a railroader is one of the most rewarding industrial careers in the U.S. Not to mention the outstanding pay and benefits.
In fact, freight rail jobs can provide even more than that – railroaders often follow in their family members’ footsteps to join them on the job. A few reasons why? Perhaps it’s the retirement benefits that provide nearly twice the retirement income as the average Social Security recipient. Or the high-quality health care. Or wages that can reach as high as $140,000 per year on average. Regardless of what brings someone to the railroad for a job – there’s a good chance they’ll stay for a career. Learn more.
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But first…
- 🎧 Which Trump will Harris debate?: If you missed it, check out the latest episode of my podcast, Somebody’s Gotta Win, wherein The Bulwark’s Marc Caputo and I break down all the biggest questions surrounding Tuesday’s presidential debate. We exchange inside reporting on debate prep, evaluate the candidates’ myriad strengths and weaknesses, and try to determine which version of Trump will show up. And earlier this week, I had a rollicking chat with feminist author and content creator Liz Plank about this election’s widening gender gap. (Listen to the Caputo conversation here, and Plank here.)
- 🎧 The Daily Show Renaissance: On the latest episode of my partner John Heilemann’s Impolitic podcast, he reunited with his old pal Jordan Klepper to candidly assess Jon Stewart’s return to The Daily Show, and to discuss his signature forays into the “dark, savage, and achingly comical heart of the MAGAsphere.” It’s yet another great episode. Listen here.
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| One memorable hallmark of the semi-existent 2024 Republican primary was the Trump campaign’s visceral hatred for Ron DeSantis, and their ceaseless mockery of his behemoth super PAC, Never Back Down, which famously spent $130 million in Iowa—only to lose the January caucus by a whopping 30 points. DeSantis immediately dropped out, sheepishly endorsed Trump, and eventually wormed his way back into the former president’s good graces at least far enough to get a speaking slot at the R.N.C.
In Trumpworld, there will always be suspicion toward DeSantis and anyone who works for him. After all, Trump campaign co-chairman Susie Wiles was unceremoniously fired by the Florida governor after she helped him win that very seat. Wiles went on to stock the Trump campaign with her coterie of fellow DeSantis-world exiles, including political director James Blair, spokesperson Brian Hughes, and senior advisor Taylor Budowich, among others. So you can imagine the scene at Mar-a-Lago after it came to light that a crew of DeSantis alumni had taken over at America PAC—the super PAC backed by Trump’s (current) number one fan Elon Musk—especially since this same group of advisors had been behind the DeSantis campaign’s fairly disastrous decision to rely on a super PAC to handle almost all of its field operations.
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
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| Freight rail delivers just about everything. From the backpacks your kids fill with their schoolwork to the food on your table. But the most important thing we deliver? A good living.
Working on the railroad offers the opportunity to build a stable, lifelong career with leading compensation, secure retirement, professional growth and high-quality health care. Most Class I represented rail employees will earn between $90,000 and $140,000 in annual wages, depending on their craft. That makes average annual compensation in the rail industry place in the top 6%… among all industries. Combined with retirement benefits that provide nearly twice as much retirement income as the average Social Security recipient – it’s no wonder why jobs often turn into lifelong careers on the railroad. Learn why railroading is a rewarding career.
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| In many ways, of course, this is a self-inflicted headache. The Trump campaign finds itself in this situation because it ousted R.N.C. chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, replaced her with Lara Trump, and dismantled the R.N.C.’s ground operation, thereby creating the need to farm out much of this work to super PACs including American PAC and Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point Action. Alas, no one can be sure how skillfully a super PAC will execute typical campaign operations like data collection, door-to-door canvassing, digital advertising, voter registration, get-out-the-vote initiatives, etcetera. (Perhaps the best recent evidence that this particular form of backseat driving doesn’t work is DeSantis’s own Never Back Down debacle, which I discussed recently with Republican mega-consultant Jeff Roe.) And while things might be different this time for the Trump campaign thanks to a new F.E.C. ruling that makes it easier for campaigns to coordinate with super PACs, the efficacy of these new field operation models can really only be measured after Election Day.
Anyway, despite the new ruling, campaigns still have little control over the outside groups that they’re relying on. That’s why it baffled many inside the Trump campaign when Chris LaCivita blessed the mid-July shake-up at Musk’s America PAC. DeSantis’s former campaign manager Generra Peck and former senior advisor Phil Cox subsequently fired all the existing vendors, including canvassers, and dismantled the existing ground operation, only to bring in their own people just a month and a half before early voting is set to begin. Indeed, I’m told that shortly before Trump was interviewed by Musk on X, in August, he scolded his team for allowing the DeSantis people to run a PAC that was responsible for such a large part of his own ground operation. “It’s a limp-dick version of Never Back Down, an organization that everyone universally sees as a failure,” said a campaign source. “It’s a model you ridiculed, and then you bring in the same team to replicate it?”
Naturally, all of this has juiced the tensions between Trump’s newish-ly appointed “personal envoy,” Corey Lewandowski—who is already trying to usurp control of the campaign, and who was not back-briefed on Cox and Peck—and LaCivita, who several sources close to Trump are predicting may be nudged further away from the inner sanctum. “Corey said to LaCivita, ‘Elon’s PAC is not doing enough in the field,’ and LaCivita was like, ‘What do you want me to do about it?’” the campaign source said. “Corey was asking why it was set up, why there was no accountability, why no one was paying attention to make sure that the work was getting done.” Said another source, “It’s going to get to a boiling point, and Corey is looking at all of the angles.” (Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung described this scenario as “bullshit.”)
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| When Cox and Peck took over the existing operations at America PAC in July and fired firms such as In Field Strategies and Raconteur Media, which the campaign had already paid a combined $20 million, they apparently did so with Musk’s blessing. “It was a big deal when they got pushed out,” said a source familiar. “[Cox and Peck] pulled a power move, but it was in the middle of July, when all of this stuff was going on with Biden and Trump.” Cox and Peck then undertook the slow and messy work of replacing the old vendors with their own under their umbrella consultancy, P2. But I’m told that Musk, who was engaged in the operation, grew frustrated with how long it was taking Peck and Cox to reestablish the ground operation.
Meanwhile, Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point super PAC, which is running operations in Arizona and Wisconsin, has been described to me as shaky, which is on-brand for Kirk, a guy who is best-known for riling up young CPAC goonies. A Republican operative running Wisconsin described Turning Point to the The Dispatch as “big press releases, big tweets, lots of smoke, very little work.” At the same time, Kirk organized the event where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Trump, which was seen as a massive success. “Whoever left that quote is jealous or trying to stir the pot. Our Chase the Vote initiative is massively successful and is only gaining steam,” said Turning Point Action spokesperson Andrew Kolvet.
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| Musk, whose learning curve in the ways of the Washington political class remains steep, was eventually convinced that he needed his own political person to quarterback America PAC’s ground operations. Ironically, he went back to the R.N.C., hiring former R.N.C. national field director Chris Young and, in doing so, essentially back-benched Cox and Peck. “Elon wants people to vote early,” said a source. “He wants Republicans to vote sooner. Bringing in Chris is a clear sign he’s not happy with the shitshow. He was very frustrated with how messy it was getting.”
Alas, in this historically messy election cycle—pitting one increasingly disorganized campaign against another that’s being assembled before our very eyes—nothing is a surprise any longer. And while it seemed predictable that Trump aides would balk at the specter of DeSantii entering the picture, the emergence of Musk adds a whole new wrinkle. The only thing kookier than Trump’s recent behavior and his campaign’s turbulence is the fact that, as of today, most people still think he’s going to win.
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| FOUR STORIES WE’RE TALKING ABOUT |
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