With just over two weeks until Americans vote for their next president, Donald Trump may have lost a key member of his campaign: National Political Director Jim Murphy said he will “take a step back from the campaign.” In a short statement to Politico, he attributed his decision to “personal reasons” while making clear that he has “not resigned.” Campaign aides said Murphy has been absent in recent days.

Internal clashes and international scandals have rocked Trump’s campaign since its inception. Murphy joined Trump’s campaign in June, succeeding Rick Wiley, who clashed with Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager, a position now held by Kellyanne Conway. Paul Manafort resigned as campaign chairman in August following intense pressure surrounding his lobbying work for the pro-Russian former president of Ukraine.

A career lobbyist, Murphy was a key waypoint between Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee. He also helped build field operations in battleground states, and oversaw the floor operations at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July. It’s quite late in the game for such a vital piece of a presidential campaign to “step back,” especially considering Trump’s recent self-inflicted wounds and falling poll numbers.

Murphy’s stint with the Trump campaign–which, if he is on hiatus, might still be ongoing–is not his first foray into politics. In 1988, he worked on Bob Dole’s unsuccessful White House bid. Murphy and Manafort worked together for Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign as well.

There are 18 days until Election Day, and Trump has seemingly lost his national political director. How this affects the logistics of his campaign’s final push is unclear at this point, but certainly worth keeping an eye on.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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During CNN’s town hall hosted by Anderson Cooper on Tuesday evening, all three remaining Republican candidates backed away from earlier pledges that they would support the party’s eventual presidential nominee.

Cooper asked Trump outright if he planned to continue to pledge support for whoever the nominee is and Trump replied, “No, I don’t anymore.”

With a bit of prodding, Trump accused the Republican National Committee and the establishment of “treating him very unfairly.”

Trump’s comments came after Ted Cruz effectively said he’d withdraw his pledge if Trump became the nominee.

Cruz said, “I’m not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and attacks my family.” Adding, “I think nominating Donald Trump would be an absolute trainwreck, I think it would hand the general election to Hillary Clinton.”

Cruz’s unwillingness to consider supporting Trump as the party’s nominee shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Last week things between the pair got heated after they squared off in defense of their of wives’ honor.

Cruz called Trump a “sniveling coward” after the business mogul threatened to “spill the beans” on Cruz’s wife Heidi. The threats came after a super pac-funded attack ad endorsing Cruz used a nude image from a GQ photoshoot of Trump’s wife Melania to target Utah’s conservative Mormon base.

Ohio Governor John Kaisch also refused to say that he would absolutely support the party’s nominee,  admitting to Cooper that he and his fellow candidates probably shouldn’t have agreed to the pledge in the first place.

“I have got to see what happens,” Kasich said. “If the nominee is somebody I think is really hurting the country and dividing the country, I can’t stand behind them.”

During the town hall Trump also addressed the scandal involving his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields. Lewandowski was arrested and charged with simple battery of the reporter, after she claimed that he aggressively grabbed her during a campaign rally in Jupiter, Florida.

Trump doubled down in defense of Lewandowski, claiming he has no intention of “discarding” him. At one point Trump even speculated that Secret Service was suspicious of the pen Fields was carrying in her hand, because it  could have been a “little bomb“

Trump fueled the flames further by sending out the following tweet criticizing the charges, which drew a response from Fields.

Wow, Corey Lewandowski, my campaign manager and a very decent man, was just charged with assaulting a reporter. Look at tapes-nothing there!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2016

Because my story never changed. Seriously, just stop lying. https://t.co/1fz9cBHOuT

— Michelle Fields (@MichelleFields) March 29, 2016

We’ll have to wait and see if Trump continues to support his campaign manager as the case moves forward, but he’s already being criticized by candidates from both parties.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign spokesman Brian Fallon commented on the charges telling CNN, “It is a very serious charge the Trump campaign will have to answer for and obviously every candidate is responsible for the culture they create in their campaign.”

So, while it may not surprise anyone, the GOP race is getting even nastier than it has been, and a fight at the convention is still a possibility.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields has resigned from the conservative news site after it failed to come to her defense when she was allegedly assaulted by Donald Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski at a rally.

According to the police report filed by Fields, the incident took place in Jupiter, Florida on March 8 at 115 Eagle Tree Terrace (Trump National).

In a Breitbart post that begins with the words “I never meant to be part of the story,” Fields recounts her version of the incident writing,

I wasn’t called upon to ask a question during the televised press conference, but afterwards Trump wandered around, stopping at every reporter to take their questions. When he approached me, I asked him about his view on an aspect of affirmative action. 

Trump acknowledged the question, but before he could answer I was jolted backwards. Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down. I almost fell to the ground, but was able to maintain my balance. Nonetheless, I was shaken.

According to Fields, Washington Post reporter Ben Terris witnessed the assault first hand and confirmed that it was in fact Lewandowski who grabbed her.

Politico was able to obtain an exclusive audio recording and transcript of the exchange, where Terris asks Fields if she’s ok. Later on she says, “That was insane. You should have felt how hard he grabbed me. That’s insane. I’ve never had anyone do that to me from a campaign.”

For added proof, Fields posted the following photo of her fingerprint-sized bruises on her arm to her Twitter tagging Lewandowski.

I guess these just magically appeared on me @CLewandowski_ @realDonaldTrump. So weird. pic.twitter.com/oD8c4D7tw3

— Michelle Fields (@MichelleFields) March 10, 2016

Lewandowski wasted no time denying grabbing her, and accused Fields of having a history of falsely accusing men of assaults on Twitter.

Michelle Fields is an attention seeker who once claimed Allen West groped her but later went silent. https://t.co/J86Ej42eYx

— Corey Lewandowski (@CLewandowski_) March 10, 2016

Trump’s campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks also flatly denied that Lewandowski put his hands on Fields. In a statement Hicks said,

As one of dozens of individuals present as Mr. Trump exited the press conference, I did not witness any encounter. In addition to our staff, which had no knowledge of said situation, not a single camera or reporter of more than 100 in attendance capture the alleged incident

She then added,

This individual has never met Corey, nor had the only reporter that supposedly identified him. There are often large crowds aggressively seeking access to Mr. Trump and our staff would never do anything to harm another individual, while at the same time understanding that Mr. Trump and his personal space should never be invaded.

The most disturbing part of the scandal was the fact that Breitbart didn’t even back its own reporter during all of this.

Even though the ultra-conservative site has showered Trump with support throughout his campaign, it still has a responsibility to defend its employees. Instead it told staffers to stop tweeting and publicly supporting her, then “tepidly” asked for an apology.

Fields told the Washington Post,

I would have liked for [Breitbart] to believe me, believe the eyewitness. I think they were more concerned about preserving their access to Trump than they were about finding out the truth.

Fields handed in her resignation Sunday night.

That same night Brietbart editor-at-large Ben Shapiro followed suit in solidarity.

Tonight, I resigned from Breitbart News due to their treatment of @MichelleFields. My full statement: https://t.co/kEFev1L0Af

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 14, 2016

Shapiro said in a statement,

Andrew [Breitbart] built his life and his career on one mission: fight the bullies. But Andrew’s life mission has been betrayed. Indeed, Breitbart News, under the chairmanship of Steve Bannon, has put a stake through the heart of Andrew’s legacy. In my opinion, Steve Bannon is a bully, and has sold out Andrew’s mission in order to back another bully, Donald Trump; he has shaped the company into Trump’s personal Pravda, to the extent that he abandoned and undercut his own reporter, Breitbart News’ Michelle Fields, in order to protect Trump’s bully campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who allegedly assaulted Michelle. I spoke with Michelle the night after the incident. She told me her story. That story was backed by audiotape, eyewitness testimony from The Washington Post’s Ben Terris, physical bruises, and video tape.

Shapiro drove the point even further adding,

This is disgusting. Andrew never would have stood for it. No news outlet would stand for it.

Nobody should.

Shapiro’s full statement can be read here.

Prior to Fields and Shapiro’s departures, Breitbart’s spokesman and publicist Kurt Bardella resigned from the account, citing the Trump incident in part.

When you reach a point where you can’t give 100% to people you represent it’s not tenable to continue representing them.

— Kurt Bardella (@kurtbardella) March 11, 2016

On Monday, more employees began to jump ship, claiming that they could no longer support the news organization if it didn’t support its own staff.

Still, the the scandal is indicative of a larger trend of violence associated with the Trump campaign. There have been several reports of people being punched, choked, and slammed at his rallies. Trump’s antagonistic rhetoric only helps to fuel the flames. The candidate condoned one protestor getting attacked saying,

Maybe he [the protestor] should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.

This could be our next president.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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