Top White House aide Mercedes Schlapp leaving for Trump campaign
Mercedes Schlapp, the White House director of strategic communications, is leaving for the Trump campaign.
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale announced her new role on Twitter. The announcement of yet another White House aide leaving comes at the beginning of Stephanie Grisham's first full week as press secretary. Schlapp will be helping the campaign with Latino voters, according to Parscale. Her work will focus on voters in Florida, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado and other battleground states.
"Thrilled to be joining the President's re-election campaign!" Schlapp tweeted Monday. "@realDonaldTrump is the best fighter for the American people we have ever had and he will be re-elected! #MAGA #FourMoreYears."
Schlapp told CBS News' Fin Gomez that the decision had been in the works for a "couple weeks." Schlapp said she will be working strategic communications, grassroots coalitions and be a campaign spokesperson in her new capacity on the campaign.
Schlapp, who spoke to the president earlier Monday about the move, says the timing for her new role is right and she wanted to be "fully committed to getting the president elected."
Mr. Trump was reportedly happy for her, according to Schlapp, and they had what she described as a "very positive exchange with the president."
Schlapp told Gomez that former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders spoke to her before her own departure from the administration and said it felt it was "a logical transition" and a "natural place for me" to work on the 2020 campaign.
The staffer joined the White House in September 2017. She is married to American Conservative Union president Matt Schlapp, who runs the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
