The Don's Capo, After Hours

Ever since Donald Trump started making things pretty awful for our friends in the media, it turns out that they're no longer content to sit on the stories of abuse that they're taking on the campaign trail anymore, especially since Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, is a scary, awful pile of talking garbage, it seems.

To a degree that is virtually unprecedented for a political operative in his position, Lewandowski frequently places himself in the middle of chaotic press scrums and volatile campaign crowds, and has reacted with physical aggression at times. 

At a press conference earlier this month in West Palm Beach, Florida, Lewandowski physically pushed CNN reporter Noah Gray away from Trump as he tried to ask the candidate a question, according to a source with close knowledge of the incident. 

It was not the first time the campaign manager had gotten in Gray’s face to prevent him from reporting. In November, when the reporter attempted to film protesters who were disrupting a Trump rally, Lewandowski threatened to pull his credentials unless he went back inside the pen the campaign uses to corral journalists. He was also heard instructing the press secretary that if Gray didn’t obey him he would be “fucking blacklisted.” The CNN reporter’s tweets about the incident riled Lewandowski and briefly inflamed tensions between the campaign and the traveling press corps, reporters told BuzzFeed News. 

A spokesperson for CNN did not respond to a request for comment. 

The campaign manager’s aggression is not necessarily physical: In one instance, at a restaurant in New York last year, Lewandowski was seen throwing back multiple drinks and loudly threatening someone on the phone. 

There is also talk among Trump’s traveling press corps for his behavior toward women. Politico first reported that Lewandowski has made “sexually suggestive” comments to female journalists that one recipient described as “completely inappropriate in a professional setting.” 

In conversations with reporters, he has expressed frustration with female journalists covering the campaign while also voicing a wish to have sex with them. And sources told BuzzFeed News that more than once, he has called female reporters late at night to come on to them, often not sounding entirely sober. Some in the press corps joke that if Lewandowski is calling after a certain hour, women are better off not answering.

It's about time that the Village started to turn on Trump.  Only fitting, as they helped create his rise in the first place nine months ago.  Now they are learning pretty quickly what the cost of covering Trump for ratings truly entails.  I'm only surprised that it took this long.