President Donald Trump personally nixed Corey Lewandowski’s request to be chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, according to a report Friday.
Trump feared handing the position to Lewandowski—his 2016 campaign manager, who is controversial even by MAGA standards—would make for bad “optics” because of a years-old rumor that he and Noem had an affair, unnamed sources told The Atlantic.
Lewandowski, 51, and Noem, 53, have denied being romantically involved and are both in long-term marriages with children.
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The Atlantic reported that Lewandowski “spent years advising and promoting” the ex-South Dakota governor “as a rising star within Trump’s orbit.”
It was perhaps that hype that put Noem on a shortlist to be Trump’s running mate last spring. She fell out of favor for the role after she infamously admitted to shooting her puppy dead for acting like a puppy.
Despite the snub from the president, Lewandowski and Noem work together to this day.
Lewandowski does not have an official title at the Department of Homeland Security, but The Atlantic’s sources say he is acting as a “supervisor of sorts.” DHS’s website does not list a chief of staff for Noem.
The Massachusetts native appeared at the same place as Noem at least twice since she was confirmed by the Senate: on a trip to Capitol Hill and at the Super Bowl in New Orleans, where DHS helped with security. He reportedly told others that travel “coincided with meetings he had with other friends and colleagues.”
Lewandowski has said he does not want a government job, The Atlantic reported. Instead, he is making his influence felt across the administration by volunteering with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. He did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast on Friday.
Lewandowski remains a close Trump ally, but others in the president’s orbit “deeply dislike” him, sources told The Atlantic. The magazine reported that some in Trumpland describe him as a “chaotic presence,” perhaps in part because he tried and failed to have Trump shake up his campaign in its home stretch last fall.
Lewandowski fell out of favor with many in MAGA back in 2021 after the then-wife of a prominent Republican donor accused him of harassing and stalking her at a Las Vegas hotel. That incident came four years after a woman accused him of slapping her butt at a holiday party against her wishes.
After the 2021 allegations, he was removed from a Trump Super Pac, and then-Governor Noem’s office announced it had also cut ties with him.
He was ordered to undergo “impulse control training,” pay a $1,000 fine, and apologize to his accuser in court for “any discomfort he may have caused her.”
