Election 2016

Report: Hundreds Have Refused to Work for Trump’s Campaign

Written by SK Ashby

The Trump campaign has downplayed reports pointing out how massively out-gunned they are from an organizational standpoint, but they are reportedly trying to hire more people. There's just one big problem.

The campaign may want to build on their measly staff of just 30* people, but that doesn't necessarily mean anyone is going to agree to join them.

The Associated Press reports that "hundreds" of campaign veterans have declined to work for Trump.

As in years past, the primary season created a pool of battle-tested staffers who worked for other candidates, from which Trump would be expected to draw. But hundreds of such aides have so far declined invitations to work for him.

They include several communications aides to Chris Christie, as well as the New Jersey governor's senior political adviser, Michael DuHaime, who has rejected direct and indirect inquiries to sign on with the billionaire.

Chris Wilson, a senior aide to Ted Cruz, said the Texas senator's entire paid staff of more than 150 ignored encouragement from Trump's team to apply for positions after Cruz quit the presidential race. Wilson said that even now, many unemployed Cruz aides are refusing to work for the man who called their former boss "Lyin' Ted."

The Associated Press quotes several Republicans who've raised moral and philosophical objections to working with Trump, but I suspect genuine cases of political disagreement are few and far between. Most Republicans agree with the vast majority of Donald Trump's political positions to the extent that he actually has positions.

How many people who worked for Ted freakin' Cruz could possibly have a genuine political disagreement with Trump? They see eye to eye on nearly everything.

The bigger concern for Republicans is sacrificing their resumes to work for a man who is currently going down in flames and taking anyone who works for him along for the ride. Trump is going to lose and it's going to be ugly.

*It's not clear how many staffers the Trump campaign currently has, but earlier reports that he has just 30 staffers came just a few days before his manager and one of his advisers were fired. We don't know if he has more than 28 staffers at this time.