A former adviser to Donald Trump claimed on Friday that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee fired his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski over the tremendous backlash Trump faced for attacking a federal judge’s ethnic heritage.
“I think that there are a lot of lessons learned all around. I think the leadership change came out of that as well,” Michael Caputo said of the judge controversy during a radio interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade.
According to Caputo, many Trump campaign staffers were concerned about the candidate’s decline in several national polls following his criticism of U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel.
“I think that we saw it just in the drop in the polls. We saw it in the lack of traction he was getting on his message,” Caputo said, though he added that Curiel “has no business being on any kind of review of Donald Trump’s Trump University.”
The New York Republican resigned from his post as communications director for Trump’s caucus operations team earlier this week after likening Lewandowski’s dismissal to the death of the Wicked Witch of the East.
“I regret sending out a tweet today alluding to the firing of Corey Lewandowski,” Caputo wrote in a letter to Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on Monday. “In hindsight, that was too exuberant a reaction to this personnel move.”
Lewandowski himself was recently hired as a political commentator by CNN, days after he told the network he would do “everything I can to make sure” Trump wins the White House.
