>> Brad Parscale, I got that name right, I think, the campaign manager for Donald Trump's
2020 bid which is flailing is out. He has been ousted and Trump announced it this morning
in the Facebook post. He said that he's removing his top campaign manager Brad Parscale and
tapping deputy campaign manager Bill Stepien, a veteran Republican operative, to take over.
Stepien was campaign manager for both the former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's
gubernatorial runs and served as deputy chief of staff. But he was fired in 2014 in the
Bridgegate scandal that plagued Christie. Stepien was named deputy campaign manager
in May in an effort to layer Parscale who had been campaign manager for more than two
years.
But they'd come under fire in the last few months for lagging poll numbers. He will keep
his digital and data strategy duties, the campaign said. Parscale's role had already
diminished greatly in recent weeks, with Stepien handling strategy, Jason Miller taking over
messaging and Jeff DeWit brought in to manage finances, said a person close to the campaign.
Some aides had assumed that Parscale would keep the top title in an honorary fashion
or that he would be moved into a chairman role, rather than be given such a clear demotion,
but that is not the Trump administration's way. Now Trump's way, even though it was apparently
Jared Kushner who demoted him and broke the news to him, not Trump himself.
He wouldn't do that, he wouldn't get his hands dirty, but he would want to make a very public
spanking out of the demotion of Parscale and humiliate him, very Trump-esque.
>> Yeah, Emma, thank you for giving the world's worst visual.
>> That's what I'm here for, that's what I'm here for.
>> Yeah, okay, I cannot get that toxicity out of my mind now. All right, one more fun
part of this story and then we'll break it down and give you real facts. Because the
one I'm about to tell you is not a fact, but it was fun. For awhile online there was rumors
that the reason Trump fired him was not because of Tulsa or the fact that he's getting killed
in the polls.
But it's because there was rumors of Brad Parscale was dating Hope Hicks. And Hope Hicks
is a two-time now White House advisor and there were rumors that Trump is in love with
her. She's, of course, like 50 years younger than him, and that that's why he got mad at
Parscale.
Now, it is definitely not true, okay? >> It was like started by the Lincoln Project
guy. I think that's where you trace the origin. So I don't trust anything that Rick Wilson
says. >> Yeah, and no, it was clearly a joke because
they said they were seen canoodling at Comet Pizza.
So that's a conspiracy theory it's definitely a joke. So okay, now let's move on to facts
that are also fun. So first of all, what Emma mentioned is awesome. Normally, they do face-saving
like, he's campaign chair. Yeah, I mean he's got a chair, he's gonna sit there for the
rest of the campaign.
But they're like no, no, now he'll be serving under the new guy who he used to serve over.
This is 100% a demotion. We wanna be super clear about it. And then it's not even a light
spanking, it's a pretty heavy spanking. The only way it gets worse, of course, he was
fired, but now he doesn't control the purse anymore.
That's very relevant because he had managed to get $40 million into his own companies
through the Trump campaign. I mean, he's almost Elmer Fudd, he had a mansion and a yacht paid
for by Trump supporters. In fact, he had a mansion, I think two condos, a yacht, a Ferrari
and a Range Rover at a minimum.
>> You're spoiling the Lincoln Project ad we're about to tee up.
>> Okay, so that that got under Trump's skin. But like the main reason that he's fired though,
and remember who Brad Parscale is. He's a rando from the middle of Texas that used to
do websites for cheap.
So the Trump Organization which only had like four or five employees. So yeah, Trump, I'm
a billionaire. No, he's not. He runs a local family mom and pop shop. It's just a mom and
pop shop that his dad gave $430 million to, right? And they do everything on the cheap.
So they hired this rando out of Texas, Brad Parscale back in 2011, to manage their rinky
dink websites, and then somehow he became and he's no political experience. All he has
is, he has a strong grift game, that's for sure. So, he's the grift that keeps on taking.
At some point, Trump was like well, you took $40 million from me, you took the audience
away in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and you took away my poll numbers, so I think the least I could
do is take away your job. Now having said all that, of course the real reason Trump
is losing is because of Trump.
>> Right, I mean, not even the most seasoned political operative could save the flailing
campaign right now, the economic collapse, the pandemic. Trump has set this all up for
himself. But Parscale was not completely ousted from the campaign because he's still sycophantic
to the Trump family and to the Trump team, he's been close and in Trump's circles for
a long time.
So, the fact that he wasn't completely out of the campaign was seen as a little bit of
a token for him. It doesn't usually happen that way, people usually go out in the ball
of flames. Mr. Parscale, who was handpicked by Mr. Kushner, and who is close to the Trump
family, lasted longer in the job than most of the people who led various iterations of
Mr. Trump's 2016 campaign.
And campaign aides emphasize that Mr. Parscale was being asked to stay on, unlike others
who have been let go from the Trump orbit. But Mr. Parscale has no background in politics,
as Cenk mentioned. And he suffered something of a mortal wound in the role three weeks
ago when a much-hyped rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma to reboot Mr. Trump's campaign was sparsely
attended.
After Mr. Parscale boasted of nearly 1 million ticket requests just over 6,000 people attended,
the June 20 event, an embarrassment that Mr. Trump could not let go of. The president at
times berated Mr. Pascale over real and perceived transgressions, sometimes screaming at him
and once threatening to sue him.
Trump loves threatening to sue people almost as much as he loves screaming at and berating
his employees which you see over and over again. Parscale still wants to work for this
guy after now being publicly humiliated and pushed to the side in a different kind of
role. And for some reason, the Trump campaign is still insisting that it's not a demotion,
it's not a demotion.
He's still with us. Everything is fine and good. This is what a Trump campaign advisor
said on cable news today. >> Let's be clear what happened here. The
only thing that shifted was Donald Trump simply asked Bill to steer the ship and Brad to man
the guns. >> Right, because Parscale's not out altogether.
He's been demoted, he'll be in a different position. So Hogan, but why the change?
>> I would argue again, I would argue a couple things. First of all, he's not demoted. What
Brad is focusing on is the digital strategy. Look, he's built something no one thought
possible, raising money at clips that are at historic levels.
And so Brad's gonna focus on one thing, Bill's gonna focus on the other. But both are working
toward victory for the American people and that means a victory for Donald Trump.
>> Notice how the Fox host gives him a win, concedes to his completely obvious BS framing
and he goes, no, no, no, no and corrects her a second time.
There's no way to get through these people. It's insane.
>> No, no, no, no, no, I wouldn't agree that going from CEO to intern is a demotion. Interns
are also super important. They're really, really important.
>> And so look, the reason why they're bending over backwards for Parscale, who's robbed
them blind, is because of Kushner.
Kushner is the most powerful guy in the White House. He's arguably the president. Trump
is like the public face of the tweets and Kushner runs everything behind the scenes.
Since he was Kushner's boy, it was very, very hard to oust him. I mean, this is the best
they could do and Trump's like, is it okay, Jared, if I just move them down, Please, I'm
begging you Jared.
I'm begging you, is it okay? And then Jared apparently green lit it that he can go back
to digital. So on that, look, he got humiliated. That's supposed to be a big strength, like
digital campaigns, well, he ran a digital campaign to get a lot of people to Tulsa.
And the idiot thought that a million people were actually going to come and didn't realize
they were kids from Tik Tok and Kpop fans. So if you get played by a bunch of teenagers
on Tick Tok maybe digital isn't your strength, and maybe stealing $40 million is your strength.
Anyway, and the other thing that Trump didn't like was, apparently he'd become too much
of a celebrity in his own right. He gives some opening speeches and then he had the
temerity to sign his own autograph for some people and that apparently got under Trump's
skin. Trump is the biggest baby in the world by an order of magnitude.
And now I wanna move on to Stepien. And then Emma, you come back in with with Lincoln Project
or whatever else you got lined up, but the new campaign manager. This is a guy who was
so unethical he was fired by Chris Christie for Bridgegate. When Chris Christie thinks
you're scum, like man, and of course, Trump sees that he's like, perfect.
Remember Trump's first lawyer, Roy Cohn, legendarily bad guy goes down in American history as one
of the worst guys to ever be associated with the government. Trump doesn't see that as
the bug, he sees that as a feature. Roger Stone, same thing. He's like, my God, you're
known as a giant dirtbag?
Great, you're in. You're the new guy, put them in. And then while you think well look,
to be fair, maybe this guy's really good at politics. So, he was the political director
for the White House in 2018 during the 2018 midterm elections. Oops, that's where they
got routed in the house.
So, failure as far as the eye can see. >> It's incredible. I mean, when you talk
about how Kushner runs things behind the scenes, Cenk, it set off a light bulb for me because
Trump can't have anyone outshining him. And Kushner doesn't outshine anybody and that's
part of why he hated Parscale, Jesus, I can't say the name, that he was signing autographs
and everything like this.
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times writes, for over a year Mr. Parscale has been the
focus of intense scrutiny and news coverage about his operation and whether he was making
an outsize amount of money from the campaign. Those articles have focused attention on his
purchases of property and cars in Florida, where he lives.
And became a source of irritation for the president, who saw them as a distraction.
Mr. Parscale was also visible in ways that campaign managers typically aren't, appearing
in a campaign ad and having his name listed on fundraising events. In addition to the
autograph signing that Cenk talked about but yeah, I mean, Kushner has no charisma.
He's kinda meek and he's allowed to shuffle through and run things behind the scenes because
he doesn't really threaten Trump in terms of, I seek attention in the spotlight in that
sense. >> Yeah, I'll give Kushner this one thing,
though. At least he was savvy enough, unlike the rest of them, to stay hidden on two counts.
If you get too much media attention, Trump will fire you even if you're his son-in-law,
so he's smart enough to hide in the bushes longer than Sean Spicer. And the second reason
why it's smart to hide is because than you're the man behind the curtain. Every time he
speaks publicly, you're like, right, he's a total idiot too, like you keep thinking
there's somebody smart behind the scenes, no.
Remember his dad had to pay a king's ransom to get him into Harvard. And I love that story
because the dumber the kid is the more you have to pay, and I think he had to pay $2
million to get him in. So better to stay hidden, Jared, it's working out okay for you so far.
>> Well, yeah, just to put a button on that. So the Lincoln Project, which an organization
I have a large amount of disdain for, in the sense that it's run by ex-Bush aid grifters,
who are taking MSNBC fans' money just to needle Trump. And then I think eventually are gonna
try to look for something back.
And when Biden wins because loco, we're a super PAC. We helped you win, super PACs definitely
do things out of the goodness of their hearts. Anyway, with that preface, the Lincoln Project
was running ads about Parscale and his lavish purchases. And that might have been what got
under Trump's skin.
>> Meet Brad Parscale, from dead broke to the man Trump can't win without, Brad was
getting rich. How rich? Really rich, but don't tell Donald. He'd wonder how Brad can afford
so much. A $2.4 million waterfront house in Fort Lauderdale, two Florida condos worth
almost a million each.
He even has his very own yacht, a gorgeous Ferrari, a sleek Range Rover. Brad brags about
using private jets. My, Brad's a star. And why not? Brad's worth every dollar, just ask
him. >> So the Lincoln Project pronounced it as
Parscale. I thought it was Parscale. That's what Brett Erlich told me, I don't know anymore.
Go on, Cenk. >> Yeah, well, you did say it was hard to
trust the Lincoln Project. Seriously though, they do make great ads. And the reason why
that was great, that's not gonna swing any voters. What is the voter in Pennsylvania
care about any of that? But, my God, Donald Trump, we'll get under every skin he's got,
the orange skin he's got is gonna get blown out by that.
When he sees that he's like, I should be making that money. I should be stealing that money,
I want the yacht. So, nice job for the Lincoln Project on hitting two birds or two crooks
with one stone