Could a crack in Donald Trump’s airtight national media strategy be emerging? There are reasons to believe the continuing story of Michelle Fields, the Breitbart News reporter who was forcibly grabbed by Trump’s campaign manager earlier this month, is doing harm to one of the GOP frontrunner’s best assets: his ability to control the narrative about himself and his campaign.
Earlier this month, Fields was covering a Trump campaign press conference at his resort in Jupiter, Florida. As she was attempting to ask the candidate a question as he exited the room, Fields and an eyewitness, Washington Post reporter Ben Terris, claimed Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski grabbed her by the arm and tried to pull her to the ground. Several still and video shots of the alleged incident seemed to corroborate Fields’s story, but Lewandowski and Trump simultaneously denied the incident happened, claimed she may have been grabbed by a different person, and/or argued that the alleged assault was harmless and routine.
The incident occurred on March 8, which was a long time ago in an election season where the focus of the news changes from day to day and hour to hour. But on Tuesday, the local police in Jupiter charged Lewandowski with battery. Police also released incontrovertible video proof, from security-camera footage, that Lewandowski was indeed the person who grabbed Fields. The story blew up, generating a new round of denials from Trump and Lewandowski and a real headache for a campaign that seems to have had no lasting public-relations fiascos so far.
Here are three reasons to think the Michelle Fields story could haunt Trump longer than most controversies have for the Republican candidate.
This is a real incident, with verifiable facts.
So many of the Trump controversies have concerned the New Yorker’s inflammatory rhetoric, empty threats, and public posturing. Trump says something outré, and everyone else involved — his opponents, the media, his supporters — debates whether he was right and appropriate. Even the recent controversies surrounding violence at Trump rallies have really been about determining whether Trump’s rhetoric from the stage inspires his supporters to get physical.
But here, we have a straightforward occurrence involving principal figures. Fields tried to ask Trump a question, and Lewandowski physically grabbed her to keep her away. Trump, Lewandowski, and the campaign have to address these cold, hard facts. They can choose to question, distort, or lie about them, and they have. For instance, Trump has incorrectly claimed Fields has changed her story since the incident, that she was “grabbing at” him, or that she looked like she could have been a threat to him.
It’s helped Trump that most of his dust-ups are vague and his deniability has remained plausible. But the campaign has now found itself having to make six or seven conflicting arguments about what really happened, which makes Trump look and sound more like a regular politician caught in the act of covering up the crime. That’s not a good look for the tell-it-like-it-is candidate.
It’s a never-ending story.
The utility of Trump’s carousel of outrage is that it keeps the targets moving. The media and Trump’s opponents may take a day or two to get a handle on the latest Trump barbarity only to find he’s already done or said something new to start the cycle over. Trump has even been able to control the narrative on external events, like the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, in a way no other candidate can, reorienting attention back to himself on his terms. It’s Trump’s version of the OODA Loop, and it’s confounded everyone.
So we might have expected Lewandowski’s manhandling of Fields to go the way of Trump’s other scandals — which is to say, out of our collective memory. Except it didn’t. Lewandowski’s arrest and battery charge have resurrected the story, seeming to catch the Trump campaign off-guard. As a result, Trump was forced into a hastily convened press conference on his private jet, where he lashed out at Fields and began adding previously unmentioned details to his own story.
And this will all happen again on May 4, when Lewandowski is scheduled to appear in court in Florida to answer for the battery charge. For the first time this cycle, Trump won’t be able to count on a story disappearing.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Trump.
This week is the first since the beginning of 2016 without either a primary election contest or a televised debate. Put another way, Trump has nothing new to talk about. No big primary victory. No commanding debate performance. Nothing. There’s a presidential race news hole, and the Michelle Fields controversy is helping fill it.
So are other recent scandals around Trump that have some similarities to the Fields incident: his retweet of an unflattering photo of Heidi Cruz and general pattern of antagonism toward his rival’s wife; a new ad highlighting Trump’s past comments about women; the publication in the pro-Trump tabloid National Enquirer of a story that dubiously claims Ted Cruz has cheated on his wife with up to five other women, which Trump campaign staffers have been egging on; and the most recent outrageous statement, that there should be “some form of punishment” for women who receive abortions.
All these stories have blown up in the last week, contributing to a narrative that Trump is kind of a jerk toward women. Standing by Lewandowski after his charge and suggesting Fields is in the wrong only compounds the idea. It may explain why according to a new poll of Wisconsin Republican primary voters, Trump is getting support from less than a quarter of women ahead of Tuesday’s contest there.
