Trump shakes up campaign leadership as polls show Biden leading

Donald Trump has replaced his campaign manager Brad Parscale with a veteran GOP operative as polls showed the US president is trailing his presumptive Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden by double digits.

Trump announced on Wednesday that he was replacing Parscale with his long-time political aide Bill Stepien.

Parscale, Trump said, “who has been with me for a long time,” will stay as a senior adviser focusing on the campaign digital and data strategies.

His successor, Stepien was the field director for the 2016 campaign and has worked for Trump since the election.

“Both were heavily involved in our historic 2016 win, and I look forward to having a big and very important second win together," Trump posted to Facebook on Wednesday evening.

Parscale lost influence and earned Trump's ire after a planned rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, fell well short of expectations at the end of June.

Parscale predicted as many as 100,000 people would show up to support Trump, but Instead a meager crowd of just over 6,000 came.

The shake-up came amid growing concerns as to whether enthusiasm for Trump's campaign has waned over his mishandling of the coronavirus crisis in the country.

A senior Trump adviser said unless Trump gets a handle on the virus, he is in serious jeopardy, CNN said.

A new Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday – which was conducted July 9-13 – showed Biden with 52 percent support among registered voters, with Trump at 37 percent support.

Biden’s lead is almost double the 8-point advantage he held in Quinnipiac’s previous survey, which was conducted in mid-June.

The survey came with less than four months to go until the November election. 

It also tops 14-point leads Biden held over the president in CNN and New York Times/Siena College polls conducted last month, FOX News said.

The survey showed the former vice president edges Trump 50-45 percent on handling the economy, which has long be the US president’s strongest issue.

Polls from CNBC and the Democratic firm Navigator Research found similar disapproval numbers.

Trump welcomes Flynn back on board

The US president said he would welcome his former national security advisor Michael Flynn back to the White House. 

Flynn lasted less than a month on the job before being fired in 2017 for lying to the vice president about his interactions with Russia's ambassador to the US.

"I would. I think he's a great gentleman," Trump told CBS News.

“He's a great — he's been in the military for many, many decades, actually. Highly respected. What General Flynn went through is so unfair," Trump added.

Flynn was among six Trump campaign associates charged in the course of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 election.

The development triggered concerns among critics about the politicization of the Justice Department under Trump.

The federal judge in the Flynn case asked an appeals court last week to rethink its decision ordering his charges to be dropped.

Record 32.9 million Americans collecting unemployment checks

New applications for US jobless benefits fell last week, but a record 32.9 million Americans were collecting unemployment checks in the third week of June.

The Trump administering is in crisis for its chaotic response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 137,000 people across the United States.

His mishandling of the crisis has caused his approval rating go underwater in at least 8 major battleground states, according to Morning Consult, which conducts daily surveys of more than 5,000 registered voters to track Trump's approval rating.

It found last month that Trump had a net-zero or negative approval rating in nine critical swing states.

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