Donald Trump’s campaign is reportedly taking a deep dive into its finances after the demotion of now-former campaign manager Brad Parscale, who was known for his lavish lifestyle and loose spending habits.
The Trump campaign announced this week that Parscale was being moved into a role where he will be working on data collection, which was his forte during the 2016 election. While they said there was no connection between his demotion and the decision to run an audit of its finances, Republican sources told Business Insider that the audit was indeed about the former manager.
The report claimed that Trump grew “p*ssed” after a report that Parscale had chosen to run the campaign from a poolside location in Florida, leading to a “full autopsy” of the finances. Other reports pointed to Parscale’s spending as a potential liability for Trump, as well as his inexperience in leading a national campaign.
As The Daily Beast added, Parscale had gained a reputation for his love of expensive items.
“Parscale, reportedly called the $10 million man by Trump, has made no secret of the fact he got rich by working for Trump. He reported a monthly salary of $15,000 from the campaign but recently splashed out on a Ferrari and multiple homes,” the report noted.
While there has been nothing connecting Parscale to any inappropriate spending, he did face significant criticism for some of the campaign’s missteps during the COVID-19 crisis.
The former manager was seen as a driving force behind Trump’s first in-person campaign rally in the months since the outbreak led the United States into a lockdown — an event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that took place last month. It came with great fanfare and Parscale took to social media in the days leading up to the event to brag about the hundreds of thousands of people who registered for tickets. However, only a little more than 6,000 people actually attended. The campaign blamed “radical” protesters blocking exits for the lack of a crowd, but journalists covering the event said they had seen no such thing take place. Video showed a small group of protesters briefly interfering with one entrance, but the blockage was cleared within minutes.
Parscale also oversaw a dip in polling for Trump, who once stood close to former Vice President Joe Biden in national polling but has trailed by 10 points or more in a number of recently released polls.
A report from Politico noted that Parscale was “deeply hurt” by his demotion.
