Former Trump PAC strategist: The Donald never wanted to be president

Former Trump strategist says he never wanted to be President.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Donald Trump never expected it to get this far in the presidential race, says Stephanie Cegielski, the former communications director of the Make America Great Again Super PAC, which closed its doors at Trump's request in October amid rumors of illegal coordination with the Trump campaign. Writing in XOJane, Cegielski chronicles her own experience with Trumpmania and claims Trump did not initially intend or desire to actually snag the Republican nomination:

The Trump camp would have been satisfied to see him polling at 12 percent and taking second place to a candidate who might hold 50 percent. His candidacy was a protest candidacy. [...]I'll say it again: Trump never intended to be the candidate. But his pride is too out of control to stop him now.You can give Trump the biggest gift possible if you are a Trump supporter: stop supporting him.He doesn't want the White House. He just wants to be able to say that he could have run the White House. He's achieved that already and then some. If there is any question, take it from someone who was recruited to help the candidate succeed, and initially very much wanted him to do so. [XOJane]

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.