Corey Lewandowski, a former Donald Trump campaign manager who is now setting up a D.C. consulting shop, said Mr. Trump’s repeated pledge on the campaign trail to “drain the swamp” will now take a backseat to other issues like jobs and health care.
“I think if you had to put them in a chronological order, ’drain the swamp’ is probably somewhere down on the bottom, as opposed to getting tax reform done, making sure middle class people have more jobs, making sure we’re re-negotiating our bad trade deals, ensuring that we’re fixing Obamacare,” Mr. Lewandowski said Thursday on “Fox & Friends.”
“I think at the end of the day, it’s about the economy. It’s about creating jobs, it’s about fixing the bad trade deals,” he said.
“So draining the swamp is a larger narrative, but what it’s really about is putting people back to work,” he said.
Mr. Trump himself admitted he didn’t even really like the line at first but that crowds responded to it on the campaign trail. He compared his relationship with it to Frank Sinatra’s distaste for “My Way,” one of the legendary singer’s all-time greatest hits.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had hinted this week that the line might have partly been used as a mere campaign device.
“I’m told he now just disclaims that. He now says it was cute, but he doesn’t want to use it anymore,” Mr. Gingrich, a top Trump ally, told NPR.
Mr. Lewandowski also announced this week that he is setting up a consulting shop just blocks from the White House.
He said he wants to help Mr. Trump’s agenda move forward and “be a resource to corporations who want to get a fast answer from the government and not a long maybe.”
“I think that’s a value add that I can potentially provide,” Mr. Lewandowski said. “The goal isn’t to go and become a swamp creature or to become a lobbyist. I’m not going to be a lobbyist. It’s not going to happen.”
“What I am going to do is make sure that Donald Trump’s agenda is put forth and those people in Congress and across the country who have [supported] him have the resources they need to make an agenda a success,” he said.
Mr. Lewandowski was fired from the Trump campaign in June and later became a commentator for CNN.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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