Top GOP campaign advisers want nothing to do with Donald Trump

(Image credit: Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images)

Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump doesn't have much in the way of campaign infrastructure — in fact, one recent report revealed he employs a mere 30 campaign staff nationwide, the same as what his likely general election opponent, Hillary Clinton, has in Iowa alone.

But now that Trump is beginning to recognize he'll need more help to claim the Oval Office, he has discovered very few experienced GOP advisers are willing to work with him.

"Right now I feel no obligation to lift a finger to help Donald Trump," said Brent Swander, a Republican logistics coordinator who has worked on multiple presidential campaigns. "Everything that we're taught as children — not to bully, not to demean, to treat others with respect — everything we're taught as children is the exact opposite of what the Republican nominee is doing," Swander added. "How do you work for somebody like that? What would I tell my family?"

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Scott Smith, formerly of the George W. Bush, Rick Perry, and Ted Cruz outfits, echoed Swander's sentiments. "It's very clear that none of us are going to work for Trump," he said. "Even if I wanted to work for Trump, my wife would kill me."

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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.