White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of the most powerful city in the world — Washington, D.C. — and those who cover it.

Volta Insider: Paul Manafort and Reince Priebus Storm the DNC

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The Republicans have set up camp in enemy territory at a boxing arena in South Philadelphia where they will host a series of press conferences during the week of the DNC. Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, Reince Priebus, Chairman of the RNC, and Sean Spicer, Chief Communications Director of the RNC spoke on the record and organized a brief Q&A for the audience. Responding to questions about the DNC WikiLeaks, claiming that the Trump campaign and the RNC will not have the same problem, and do not have any involvement. The theme of their setup was “Enough” complete with dice, cornhole, and other games all “rigged” for Hillary to win as well as a poster with a “setlist” of her scandals dating back to the 1980s.

You can check out more of my convention coverage here.

Masters in Politics: Alex Castellanos Announces Pro-Trump Super PAC TV Ad Buy

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Tammy Haddad and Betsy Fischer Martin, co-hosts of Bloomberg’s Masters in Politics podcast caught up with GOP political strategist and regular CNN contributor Alex Castellanos, advisor to the pro-Trump Super PAC Rebuilding America Now, about the convention and his plans for the PAC in the coming weeks. “A little bit of breaking news here, we’ll be getting up after this convention in 3 swing states: Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. It will be on national cable, it will be a multi-million dollar buy, and we’re gonna stay on it till the election and try to rescue America from Hillary Clinton and try to make America great again by electing Donald Trump.”

Castellanos also revealed that Donald Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort gave the Rebuilding America Now PAC his blessing. “We had a meeting Wednesday with contributors and Paul Manafort called in, gave our contributors a briefing on the state of the campaign and let folks know that there’s no better way to help elect Donald Trump than to support our PAC Rebuilding America Now. Marty Obst, who is running the Mike Pence VP operation, also came and Governor Pence is going to be giving us part of his schedule to attend some events where we’ll be having an opportunity to raise a few dollars for the PAC. I don’t think any other PAC is getting that kind of encouragement.”

You can listen to the full podcast here.