Former President Donald Trump has made some changes to his team that should send chills to Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign.
The former president has enlisted the assistance of former Democrat Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for his debate preparations, The New York Times reported.
Many know Gabbard from her frequent Fox News appearances but some may not remember how she decimated the vice president during the 2020 Democrat Primary Debate.
“Senator Harris says she’s proud of her record as a prosecutor and that she’ll be a prosecutor president, but I’m deeply concerned about this record,” she said during the debate, which many believe was the death knell for the 2020 Harris campaign. “There are too many examples to cite, but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.”
“She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so,” she said. “She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California and she fought to keep a cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way.”
WATCH:
5 years ago today, Tulsi Gabbard ended Kamala Harris 2020 presidential campaign after calling her out in a debate.
— End Tribalism in Politics (@EndTribalism) July 31, 2024
One would think that Tulsi being a young, veteran, woman, POC, and having 8 years of experience in Congress that she would’ve been the future face of the Democratic… pic.twitter.com/yvZeGjMXZm
Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt confirmed to The Times that Gabbard had joined the team.
She said that the former president has “proven to be one of the best debaters in political history as evidenced by his knockout blow to Joe Biden. He does not need traditional debate prep but will continue to meet with respected policy advisers and effective communicators like Tulsi Gabbard, who successfully dominated Kamala Harris on the debate stage in 2020.”
But that is not the only change that the former president has made to his team.
He added some familiar faces to his 2024 campaign, according to reports on Thursday.
They’re familiar because they helped him win in 2016. One of them is one-time campaign manager-turned-top adviser Corey Lewandowski, CNN noted. Sources emphasized that Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles will continue to co-manage the campaign team.
Instead, Lewandowski will be brought on to help navigate the evolving political landscape now that President Joe Biden is out and Vice President Kamala Harris has become the Democratic nominee.
In a bid to strengthen Trump’s political operation, the campaign has recently added another trusted ally, Taylor Budowich, as a senior adviser. Budowich, who has led the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA, Inc. for the past two years, brings valuable experience to the team as well.
“As we head into the home stretch of this election, we are continuing to add to our impressive campaign team,” Wiles and LaCivita said in a statement to CNN. “Corey Lewandowski, Taylor Budowich, Alex Pfeiffer, Alex Bruesewitz, and Tim Murtaugh are all veterans of prior Trump campaigns and their unmatched experience will help President Trump prosecute the case against Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the most radical ticket in American history.”
Wiles and LaCivita have been co-chiefs for most of the past two years, wielding significant influence to shape the campaign and the Republican Party’s strategy for Trump’s re-election. Wiles, daughter of NFL broadcast legend Pat Summerall, is a longtime Trump adviser who played a pivotal role in his 2016 victory in Florida. She later revived Ron DeSantis’s struggling gubernatorial campaign in Florida, leading him to a narrow win, CNN noted.
LaCivita joined Trump’s team in November 2022, at the start of his third campaign. A seasoned political operative, LaCivita is well-known for orchestrating the “swift boat” ads that called out John Kerry’s fabricated Vietnam War service during the 2004 presidential race.
