Trump Campaign Turmoil? Not So! Brad Parscale Strikes Back Against Anonymous Sources

The latest media story around Brad Parscale is reminiscent of the way the media attempted to drive a wedge between Dr. Fauci and President Trump.

It appears that many of those stories were overblown or flat out false.

Here's how CNN covered the alleged campaign drama:

As he huddled with advisers on Friday evening, President Donald Trump was still fuming over his sliding poll numbers and the onslaught of criticism he was facing for suggesting a day earlier that ingesting disinfectant might prove effective against coronavirus.

Within moments, the President was shouting -- not at the aides in the room, but into the phone -- at his campaign manager Brad Parscale, three people familiar with the matter told CNN. Shifting the blame away from himself, Trump berated Parscale for a recent spate of damaging poll numbers, even at one point threatening to sue Parscale. It's not clear how serious the President's threat of a lawsuit was.

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Faced with an increasingly uphill battle for reelection and aides trying to steer him in new, sometimes conflicting directions, Trump has grown increasingly unnerved in the last week about his reelection prospects. Lashing out at Parscale was just the most recent manifestation of that anxiety.

"He's p*ssed because he knows he messed up in those briefings," one Republican close to the White House said of Trump lashing out.
Last Wednesday, two days before Trump lashed out at Parscale, his campaign manager and several other top political advisers briefed him on internal campaign and Republican National Committee data showing the President was heading for defeat in key battleground states. Parscale, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and other advisers urged him to scale back his daily, combative news conferences and pointed to data showing that the briefings were hurting him with critical swing voters in those states.

The Guardian also confirms the story from anonymous stories, adding that the president used an expletive when talking about Joe Biden:

But the blow-up was just the latest in a series of tense moments between Trump and his 2020 re-election team, according to reports from multiple outlets including the Washington Post, the Associated Press and CNN.

“I’m not fucking losing to Joe Biden,” Trump reportedly said on a call with Parscale during a meeting with aides. According to multiple sources who spoke to the AP, the president cursed at Parscale repeatedly.

Trump deflected much of the blame for the disappointing polls, ignoring criticism of his performances at the podium during daily White House coronavirus press briefings, where he has repeatedly attacked the media for questioning delays in the government’s response, pushed misinformation and shown little empathy for victims.

In a meeting two days before the call, political advisers briefed Trump on data sourced internally and from the Republican National Committee. The figures showed the president losing ground against Biden in key battleground states.

Rather than trusting anonymous sources, perhaps the media should ask the people involved at the center of the story.

Both President Trump and Brad Parscale denied that the feud ever happened, let alone the threat of a lawsuit.

The new polling data supposedly showing Trump trailing Biden in swing states comes as Tara Reade's allegations of sexual misconduct by Biden continue to gain momentum in the media.

Some Trump supporters believe that it's the media way of deflecting coverage away from the Biden scandal.

Fox News reports that Parscale has risen to the president's defense after these stories were published:

Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale on Thursday denied media reports that President Trump shouted at him over the phone about 2020 polling data, arguing that news outlets have a “clear goal” of trying to “hurt” the president.

“Attn #FakeNews media: @realDonaldTrump didn’t yell at me,” Parscale tweeted Thursday. “There’s absolutely no daylight between us. We have a great relationship that spans almost 10 yrs.”

Parscale added: “Curious how multiple outlets had the same false story from bitter anonymous sources whose clear goal is to hurt POTUS.”

Parscale’s tweet comes after CNN, The New York Times and The Associated Press reported that Trump yelled at his campaign manager during a meeting last Friday after receiving a briefing on campaign and polling data that showed his support dwindling in battleground states amid his response to the coronavirus pandemic.

CNN reported that Trump shouted at Parscale over polling numbers, and threatened to sue him. The outlet reported that the two made up later that night.

The president also denied the report late Wednesday night, also blasting CNN as “fake news.”

“Just told that Fake News @CNN is falsely reporting that I was recently shouting at my campaign manager over made up nonsense,” Trump tweeted.

Polling data in 2016 was notoriously bad, as many experts and pundits predicted that Hillary Clinton would sweep the election.

Still, 2020 has shown us that a lot can change in just a few weeks.

Debates, Joe Biden's mental health, and Tara Reade's allegations are all still be waiting to be factored into the equation.

The race for the White House is far from finished.