Controversial political consultant Roger Stone, a longtime confidante to President Trump, uses a brief portion of a new book to go over bad blood fostered during the campaign.
In “The Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution,” Stone recalls his role as a senior adviser to candidate Trump and how he clashed with then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
The first Republican primary debate in August 2015 is infamous for kicking off what would become a long-lasting public feud between Trump and Megyn Kelly, then of Fox News and a moderator at the debate.
Stone said in the book, an early copy of which was provided to the Washington Examiner, that the feud “lead to a clash” between Stone and the “Yes Men” of Trump’s campaign, one of whom he identifies as Lewandowski.
“I was worried about [Trump] straying away from this Reagan-like promise to rebuild America with continued anger over the spat with Megyn Kelly,” wrote Stone. He said he then made the “difficult decision” to leave the campaign and “help Donald Trump, my friend and client of over 40 years,” from the outside.
At the time, Trump’s campaign said it had actually fired Stone, who he got to know in New York in the 1970s.
Stone, however, chocks the affair up to mischief by Lewandowski, whom he accuses in the book of “looking to brown-nose” his way into Trump’s graces.
“I do not regret the public ‘breakup’ we had to endure, manufactured in large part by feckless Corey Lewandowski and limp minds of the mainstream media,” wrote Stone. “Lewandowski was eventually canned after his self-aggrandizing sourced reports to journalists — all designed to pat himself on the back — finally reached an intolerable high. Lewandowski simply has no shame.”
After Lewandowski resigned from the Trump campaign, he was succeeded by Paul Manafort who also resigned late in the campaign, Lewandowski signed on to work for CNN.
“Even after being fired, he hung around in the shadows, desperate to be back in the spotlight that he even signed on as a ‘commentator’ with CNN — the network we have called the ‘Clinton News Network’ since the 1990s because of the obvious bias,” wrote Stone.
Lewandowski has since left CNN and opened a lobbying firm in Washington, D.C.
Lewandowski did not return a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
Stone’s book will be published on Jan. 31.
