Trump overhauls campaign staff

Donald Trump announced a shake-up of his campaign leadership today. The Republican presidential nominee named Stephen Bannon from the conservative Breitbart News website as chief executive officer and promoted pollster Kellyanne Conway to campaign manager.

Paul Manafort, Trump’s controversial campaign chairman, will retain his title, but Trump said Bannon would now oversee the campaign staff and operations, raising questions about Manafort’s role going forward.

Manafort worked for months to mend fences between Trump and Republican lawmakers who want him to dial down his fiery rhetoric and run a more traditional campaign. Trump has largely resisted those pleas, and the latest staff changes seemed to guarantee he’ll continue to maintain that posture.

The moves follow a rough month on the campaign trail for Trump, from his verbal spat with the parents of a Muslim-American soldier to his suggestion “the Second Amendment people” could stop Hillary Clinton from appointing liberal judges.

On Sunday, Trump took to Twitter to complain about the media coverage of his campaign.

“It is not ‘freedom of the press’ when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want even if it is completely false!” he tweeted.

Critics charged that tweet showed a desire on his part to restrict the freedom of the press, again drawing criticism from both sides of the aisle. Trump’s numerous controversies have distracted from Hillary Clinton’s problems, including a recently announced ethics investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

Listen to “White House Wednesday” on the Aug. 17, 2016, episode of The World and Everything in It.