It’s primary day in New York, which means two things: my Facebook feed will soon become momentarily less clotted with insufferable Democrat infighting, and Donald Trump’s campaign is facing another round of self-induced heavy bleeding that will, somehow, still not kill it.
Donald Trump, a Rumpelstiltskin inflated with a bike pump and filled with bacteria, is polling well in New York. That’s even though the Trump campaign is facing two threatened lawsuits from people who say they’ve been defamed by the candidate and his staff, and even though the campaign staff itself is gracefully imploding.
The first threatened litigant is former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields, who spoke to CNN’s Brian Stelter on Sunday, after Florida prosecutors decided to drop battery charges she was pursuing against Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
“Corey lied. Donald Trump lied,” Fields told Stelter. “They defamed me. They went on this huge smear campaign against me.”
Fields hasn’t filed suit yet, but Cheryl Jacobus has: the GOP strategist sued Trump for $2 million Monday, accusing him of falsely claiming that she “begged” his campaign for a job. Jacobus says in the suit that she declined a job offer based on “erratic” behavior by Lewandowski during a June 2015 meeting at Trump Tower.
After she discussed that ill-fated job interview on CNN, the suit says, Donald Trump incited a “virtual mob” against her:
Jacobus was “inundated with an avalanche of vicious ridicule and scorn,” her suit claims:
The attacks by Trump’s followers were laced with sexual degradation and pornographic vulgarity. She was depicted in numerous graphic illustrations as an appropriate victim for rape and sexual assault, including images of Jacobus bent over naked being raped from behind.
Lewandowski was reportedly demoted Tuesday morning, replaced by Paul Manafort, the actual professional campaign staffer Trump was forced to hire last week.
Also, Stuart Jolly, the campaign’s national field director just quit, though he assured Trump that his leaving “has nothing to do with you or Corey’s staff, because I have never worked with a finer group of people.”
One thing we’re seeing about the Trump campaign: they are just great, great judges of character.
Lewandowski and Trump in Iowa, August 2015. Photo via AP