Former Trump Advisor Michael Caputo On Paul Manafort’s Resignation: Donald Trump Stopped Listening To Manafort
“It became apparent over time here that the two of them stopped seeing eye to eye a few weeks ago…the disagreement become more apparent, you could see it in some of the news reporting that was out there and it appeared that Mr. Trump had stopped listening to Paul Manafort, which led to Kellyanne Conway & Steve Bannon coming in to augment the leadership team but I was quite surprised to find out that Paul Manafort resigned.”
—Michael Caputo on why he thinks Paul Manafort resigned as Donald Trump’s campaign chairman today
Michael Caputo, former advisor to Donald Trump , called into Kilmeade & Friends to discuss the breaking news of Paul Manafort resigning as Trump’s campaign chairman today.
Listen here:
Caputo on Paul Manafort resigning as Trump’s campaign chairman
(CAPUTO) It became apparent over time here that the two of them stopped seeing eye to eye a few weeks ago. I am not privy to their private conversations or how they felt about each other but the disagreement become more apparent, you could see it in some of the news reporting that was out there and it appeared that Mr. Trump had stopped listening to Paul Manafort, which we were told, those of us on the outside looking in, that led to Kellyanne Conway & Steve Bannon coming in to augment the leadership team but I was quite surprised to find out that Paul Manafort resigned.
Caputo on his concern of the ripple effect from Manaforts resignation
(CAPUTO) Now I am concerned how far this ripples down. Do Paul’s lieutenants leave as well?
(Kilmeade) Who are some of the lieutenants Michael that are very tight with him?
(CAPUTO) Rick Gates is the one I am most concerned about. Rick is Paul’s right hand man. I just saw a text from somebody a few minutes ago that Rick may have resigned. That really bothers me, he has been on the plane with Mr. Trump, he has been the one implementing every single one of Paul’s strategies running across the organization all day long and I don’t know whether that’s true yet. Rick Gates has been told he is welcomed to stay and I think there are others, Murph (Jim Murphy) head of political departments and the leaders of the different states who are all Manafort people.
(Kilmeade) Do you think it has anything to do with the Russian/Ukraine connection?
(CAPUTO) My understanding is that the steady stream of Ukraine, Russia stories that were coming out in the media were mind of bleeding Paul out. None of that was good news, a lot of that was incorrectly reported and most of it came from a very thorough Hillary Clinton campaign opposition research file that was being pushed around to the media in recent weeks. They were very, very thorough where they didn’t find facts, they were cleverly made up. The way they packaged this thing to take Paul Manafort out was brilliant but unfortunately it was effective, I am not quite sure that was the principle reason.
