So much for Donald Trump’s tightly run, professionally operated, supposedly impenetrable campaign. Last weekend, I began hearing rumblings that the Red Bull-chugging operative Corey Lewandowski, who managed and then was fired from Trump’s 2016 campaign—and then was fired again from the super PAC in 2021 after being accused of sexually assaulting a donor—was calling around and boasting that he would be returning as campaign chairman, a role that would place him above campaign co-managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita. Lewandowski, of course, is something of a scandal magnet, with a Wikipedia that doubles as a veritable rap sheet. But Trump, under siege and self-sabotaging as Kamala Harris surges in the polls, has been feeling superstitious and nostalgic of late. 

I woke up Thursday morning to a storm of text messages saying that it was really happening, and then, within an hour, Trump’s team had leaked the news to Politico. The two had been talking for a while, and Lewandowski traveled with the team on the night of the debate. But from what I hear, Trump was alone in making the call to hire Lewandowski, who has been consulting for the R.N.C. since April. “People in Trumpworld try to stop things and they can’t,” said a former aide. “Sometimes when the ship has left the port, it’s left the port.”