Ms. Hicks, who was working for his daughter Ivanka’s luxury lines and for the Trump real estate brand when the candidate called her to his office in early 2015 and declared that she was joining his campaign.
.. Hope Hicks had trained at Hiltzik Strategies, the powerful public relations firm that represents Hollywood clients and corporate executives
.. She is arguably the least credentialed press secretary in the modern history of presidential politics. But for journalists who cover the campaign, she is sometimes the Jekyll to Mr. Trump’s Hyde, emailing angry complaints from her media-bashing boss (“dishonest”) and often concluding with her own polite sign-off: “Best, Hope.”
.. “She believes in him, his leadership and abilities, and she’s thrown herself completely into this,” said Michael Feldman, a prominent Democratic strategist and family friend. “I don’t think that ties her personally to everything that’s been said.”
But some say they are alarmed that Ms. Hicks is promoting, and defending, a candidate who has been denounced as a demagogue, a racist, a misogynist and even a fascist.
.. Still, he added, “It would be unfair for someone to judge Hope or the family based on her job.”
.. Her grandfather led public relations for Texaco during the 1970s oil crisis.
.. Her father, Paul B. Hicks III, represented a major tobacco company in Connecticut and later was the top communications executive for the National Football League, where he dealt with scandals over player safety and the Patriots’ deflated footballs.
.. And she is unfailingly deferential to her employer, whom she refers to only as “Mr. Trump” or “sir.”
.. She’s got very good judgment. She will often give advice, and she’ll do it in a very low-key manner, so it doesn’t necessarily come in the form of advice. But it’s delivered very nicely.”
.. “I have to hope the Secret Service is keeping them all safe,” Caye Hicks said. “It’s a crazy atmosphere.”
.. Hope preferred lacrosse, leading Greenwich High School to a state championship and later playing at Southern Methodist University, where she majored in English.
Brexit Should be a Warning about Donald Trump
“Even people who truly hate me are saying it’s the best they’ve ever seen,” he said.
.. Didn’t he know that a continent was in crisis? Would this finally expose him as unacceptably unserious? In some of his tweets, he seemed not to acknowledge that the sentiment in Scotland was for Remain—did he understand the political structure of the United Kingdom?
.. During the Leave campaign, Johnson played Paul Ryan to Farage’s Trump—the more socially acceptable peddler of destructive ideas.
.. You know, when the pound goes down, more people are coming to Turnberry, frankly.”
But only the right kind of people, it seemed. “You’re going to let people that you want into your country. And people that you don’t want, or people that you don’t think are going to be appropriate for your country or good for your country, you’re not going to have to take,” Trump said.
.. there are structural economic issues that have left both Leave sympathizers and Trump voters with real grievances, and it will be disastrous if bigoted nationalists are the only ones who engage them.
.. Both Trump and Farage and his allies have made openly racist and ethnic appeals.
.. (For those who are not regular viewers of Trump’s speeches, this is a reference to the idea that Obama is blackmailing Clinton with the threat of jail for supposed crimes related to her e-mails.)
Trump’s secret plan to quash a ‘Dump Trump’ convention plot
The presumptive GOP nominee is building a massive whip team in preparation for a possible floor fight.
In a Tuesday night conference call led partly by Trump’s top adviser Paul Manafort and including 200 staffers and volunteers, Trump’s senior convention aides sketched out a whip operation led by a half-dozen operatives with deep convention experience. The effort will rely on a team of 150 volunteers and paid staff to keep the convention’s 2,472 delegates in line, and it will utilize a database with information on many of the delegates.
.. The team will be overseen primarily by Doug Davenport, a former lobbying associate of Manafort, who was brought on board by the Trump campaign in April to court supportive delegates.
.. Trump campaign attorney Bill McGinley, who was counsel to the 2012 convention’s rules committee, will handle all of the campaign’s legal operations at the convention.
.. Anti-Trump delegates, meanwhile, have yet to compile even a complete roster of members of the convention Rules Committee, let alone the entire attendance list.
.. Davenport and Manafort did not respond to requests for comment. But the offer to pay for travel and accommodations for members of the whip team, many of whom are not campaign staffers, is notable, given the dire financial straits facing the campaign. It seems to suggest that Trump’s team is leaving nothing to chance when it comes to securing the nomination.
Donald Trump Hires Veteran Adviser to Oversee Surrogates
Donald J. Trump is bringing aboard a senior campaign aide to oversee the surrogates who defend him ..
.. Kevin Kellems
.. Mr. Kellems, who is based in Indiana, advised Newt Gingrich for a time during his 2012 presidential campaign. He also was the communications director for former Vice President Dick Cheney, and worked for Paul D. Wolfowitz, the former deputy secretary of defense who was a major proponent of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
.. The Trump campaign’s surrogate operation has relied heavily on a small cadre of supporters and cable news pundits. Aides had been looking to expand Mr. Trump’s slim communications team with people seasoned in political communications.