Corey R. Lewandowski - Trump: America First

T he world of politics, it turns out, isnt immune to a global pandemic. If you told us that a Chinese virus would circle the globe, crash the stock market, kill over one hundred and forty thousand Americans, and bring both President Donald J. Trumps and former vice president Joe Bidens presidential campaigns to a screeching halt, we would have told you youve read one too many Stephen King books, which you shouldnt be doing, by the way, seeing hes a Trump hater.

And yet, here we are.

We have been lucky enough to visit the president in the White House often but never quite like the experience we had on May 18, 2020. We were both still home with our families waiting for the Covid-19 crisis to end when the president called Corey and asked him and Dave to come see him at the White House. Molly Michael, the presidents Oval Office operations coordinator, followed up to book our appointment for 11:30 a.m. but added a small detail at the end of the call. She told us we would need to be at the Secret Service checkpoint outside the West Wing at 10:30.

Corey flew down from New Hampshire; Dave drove in from his home in Maryland. Neither of us knew exactly why we had to be at the checkpoint so early. As we pulled up to West Executive Drive just outside the White House we had our answeryou couldnt miss it. There, in front of the checkpoint, were two newly erected clear medical tents.

Welcome to the White House in the age of coronavirus.

As of this writing, the coronavirus has caused a countrywide lockdown, and millions of hardworking Americans to become unemployed. The worlds greatest political apparatus, the 2020 Trump-Pence reelection campaign, has almost entirely transitioned to a virtual operation. The campaign headquarters in Virginia has been closed. Rallies, the lifeblood of the campaign, have been put on an indefinite hold. Wall-to-wall news coverage of Covid-19 has drowned out campaign advertising across all platforms. It was like nothing we had seen before, and in politics, at least, weve seen a lot.

So now, in the middle of campaign season and after almost five non-stop years of being on the road fighting for the president of the United States, doing everything in our power to first get him elected and now reelected, weve found ourselves in the one place neither of us ever expected: Home.

Historians will look back on the Trump 2016 presidential campaign as the most incredible political comeback ever. Corey was the presidents first and longest-serving campaign manager. With Corey guiding the 2016 operation, candidate Trump won thirty-eight primaries and caucuses and received more votes than any candidate in the history of the Republican primary process. Dave has been one of the presidents most trusted outside political advisors longer than just about anyone else. He joined the 2016 effort as deputy campaign manager in August and steered the campaign down the furious stretch to victory.

Were also the authors of Let Trump Be Trump: The Inside Story of His Rise to the Presidency, the number one best-selling account of the 2016 presidential race that even the most liberal news outlets call the seminal work of that historic ride. With a tsunami of outside factors threatening to blow this presidential election cycle sky high, the 2020 campaign has become the most important race in American history.

Still, as much as we love our wives and children, sheltering in place got old. For guys like us, for whom politics is the very air we breathe, you might as well have told us the country has turned socialist and all elections have been called off (take it easy, AOC, its only an analogy).

Dont get the wrong idea. Its not as though we were just sitting home feeling sorry for ourselves; we worked the phones as hard as ever. In January 2020, Dave was named Maryland State cochairman of the Trump-Pence reelection campaign, and he served as the vice chairman of the Republican National Convention. At the end of March, along with his cochair in Maryland, Congressman Andy Harris, he conducted a conference call with hundreds of Trump volunteers from across the state. Dave asked then Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and Chris Carr, the political director, to say a few words on the call. Brad told the volunteers about the challenges of running a campaign in the days of Covid-19. He explained how the leadership team was transitioning much of the reelection effort to the virtual realm. Chris Carr then emphasized the need for the volunteers to join the virtual effort and to work the phones as though the reelection depended on it.

Corey, a senior campaign advisor for the presidents 2020 reelection effort, is making his cell phone carrier sorry it gave him an unlimited data plan. Corey is serving as the chairman of the Trump Victory Team for New Hampshire and served as the chairman of the New Hampshire delegation to the Republican National Convention. Corey organized a similar call for the Trump team in New England with campaign volunteers.