⁍ President Donald Trump demoted his campaign manager and replaced him with a new one.
⁍ Paul Begala: Brad Parscale is out of the top spot; former Chris Christie aide Bill Stepien is in.
⁍ Begala: Maybe Trump’s problem is not Parscale; maybe it’s him.

– President Trump fired campaign manager Brad Parscale on Monday and replaced him with former Chris Christie aide Bill Stepien, CNN reports. According to the New York Times, Trump blames Parscale’s “incompetence” and “ridiculous” ad spending for his campaign’s current troubles. Stepien, who will be senior adviser for digital, raised a record $266 million in the most recent quarter, including $131 million last month. The Times reports the campaign spent $16 million on legal fees and compliance costs between 2018 and 2020. But Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and CNN political commentator, believes Trump’s legal bills are not Parscale’s fault. “Someone at the Trump campaign, though, doesn’t know what they’re doing,” Begala writes. “They sent me— hardly a potential Trump donor—a fancy Trump membership card. Not cheap card-stock, mind you. This is a credit card-looking, gold-embossed card. … But as a prospecting mailer? Someone is going to make money off this, but I can’t imagine how it could be the Trump campaign. Jared Kushner has a better chance of bringing peace to the Middle East than Trump does making money off that pitch.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/17/world/coronavirus-newsletter-07-17-20-intl/index.html