When news broke that a top aide to Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was joining former President Donald Trump’s campaign last month, Trump advisers were livid, believing the aide was promoting himself, without permission of the campaign’s top brass.
Senior Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita called the newest team member, Brian Swenson, and “ripped into him,” according to two sources familiar with the conversation. The message was clear: If you want to keep your job, stop running your mouth, the source said. Swenson did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
The episode was indicative of how Trump’s 2024 team has sought to focus the messaging and the media that surrounds the chaotic world of the front-runner for the GOP nomination. His team is viewed by both outside political operatives and current and former Trump officials as his most disciplined to date. Led by seasoned Republican strategists LaCivita and Susie Wiles, the team has sought to prevent the kinds of internal leaks that were ever-present during 2016 and throughout Trump’s presidency from damaging the former president as he seeks to regain the White House.
“They know they aren’t able to control him, he will always say and do what he wants,” one source familiar with the team’s dynamic told CNN, noting that Trump is known to ignore prepared remarks and solicit outside advice from a wide net of allies, often without the knowledge of his closest advisers. “But they can try to control everyone around him.”
The advisers who have spent the last year working to streamline his campaign’s messaging, however, have recently found themselves fighting an uphill battle. They’re attempting to navigate the wide span of Trump allies all itching to be a part of the action and leverage their ties to the former president in hopes of bolstering their influence in…
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