Before President Trump even took the stage at his rally in Phoenix last week, George Gigicos' fate was sealed — he would soon be relegated to the discard bin, jostling for room alongside Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, Stephen Bannon, and Anthony Scaramucci.
Trump was backstage watching the crowd fill the floor of the Phoenix Convention Center, but he was angry when he saw how much empty space there was, one person familiar with his frame of mind told Bloomberg. Trump has always harped about staging and the size of his crowds, famously inflating the number of people who attended his inauguration, and even though more people streamed in the closer it got to Trump's speech, he decided that Gigicos, the man who organized the event, was never going to manage anther one of his rallies, three people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg; Trump didn't give him the message, instead sending his security aide Keith Schiller to break the news. Trump went on to give an animated, heavily panned speech in front of an estimated 10,000 people that included him threatening to shut down the government to get funding for a border wall, ripping apart the media, and lambasting the two Republican U.S. senators from Arizona without ever saying their names.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
The best homes of the yearFeature Featuring a grand turret entrance in New York and built-in glass elevator in Arizona
-
Nordstrom family, investor to take retail chain privateSpeed Read The business will be acquired by members of the family and El Puerto de Liverpool, a Mexican real estate company
-
Biden commutes most federal death sentencesSpeed Read The president downgraded the punishment of 37 of 40 prisoners on death row to life in prison without parole
-
Putin says Russia isn't weakened by Syria setbackSpeed Read Russia had been one of the key backers of Syria's ousted Assad regime
-
Georgia DA Fani Willis removed from Trump caseSpeed Read Willis had been prosecuting the election interference case against the president-elect
-
Democrats blame 'President Musk' for looming shutdownSpeed Read The House of Representatives rejected a spending package that would've funding the government into 2025
-
Trump, Musk sink spending bill, teeing up shutdownSpeed Read House Republicans abandoned the bill at the behest of the two men
-
Congress reaches spending deal to avert shutdownSpeed Read The bill would fund the government through March 14, 2025
-
Luigi Mangione charged with murder, terrorismSpeed Read Magnione is accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson
-
Ex-FBI informant pleads guilty to lying about BidensSpeed Read Alexander Smirnov claimed that President Joe Biden and his son Hunter were involved in a bribery scheme with Ukrainian energy company Burisma
-
South Korea impeaches president, eyes chargesSpeed Read Yoon Suk Yeol faces investigations on potential insurrection and abuse of power charges
