In latest shake-up, Trump’s campaign chairman resigns

“Paul Manafort’s resignation is a clear admission that the disturbing connections between Donald Trump’s team and pro-Kremlin elements in Russian Federation and Ukraine are untenable”, Robby Mook, the Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign manager, said in a statement. According to a new nationwide poll, Trump narrows the gap from Clinton to 4%.

Rick Gates, Manafort’s deputy, remains on the campaign and will work at the campaign’s liaison to the Republican National Committee.

Trump’s inability to course-correct has caused some political observers to question whether the real estate mogul actually wants to win the election and spend the next four years as president.

As someone whose first PR job was in a political PR firm, working on local, statewide and national campaigns, my ears perked up when I heard Mr. Trump’s statement.

Manafort had presided over a period in which Trump had fallen behind in opinion poll numbers in the race against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for the November 8 election.

As a result, he made several new appointments including new campaign chief, Kellyanne Conway, and campaign CEO, Stephen Bannon which sidelined Manafort.

Trump’s campaign said it will spend $4 million on advertising in key battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida.

Trump also made a last-minute scheduling change, scrapping a planned event in NY in order to travel with his running mate Mike Pence to tour the flood damage in Louisiana on Friday morning.

Manafort, in a statement earlier this week, has denied any wrongdoing. Russian officials have rejected that accusation.

Once Trump’s top strategist, Manafort’s resignation came at the end of a week in which his name also was connected to the handwritten ledger describing cash payments from Ukraine’s then-governing political party.

“He was talking about anyone who feels offended by anything he said”, Conway elaborated today.

“I’ll never get exhausted of winning and neither will the American people if Donald Trump is elected”, he said.

Trump’s ad buys total nearly $5 million and will run for 10 days in the swing states of Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

“I’ve been there. You put your heart and soul into something for a long period of time, and now you’re not a part of it”, he said on CNN Friday.

What remains unclear, however, is whether the Trump campaign can get its wheels permanently back on track.

“I will not rest until children of every color in this country are fully included in the American Dream”, Trump said, urging African-American voters to give him a chance.

A spokesman for Kushner declined to comment.

Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow and research coordinator at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, said Trump still had some time to turn around his campaign, noting the news came as many Americans were enjoying summer vacations.

“I’m not sure the public pays a lot of attention to inside campaign stories”, she said. “But that said, Trump has clearly been having significant problems in the polls and he needed to do something differently and perhaps this is the beginning of the attempt”.