Trump Campaign Manager Plans to Sue The Daily Beast for Overstating Income from 2024 Race

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

Chris LaCivita, the co-campaign manager of President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign and the Republican National Committee, intends to sue The Daily Beast for erroneously stating that LaCivita was paid $22 million by the campaign, while he was actually paid $19.2 million.

While The Daily Beast has made efforts to correct the record by updating the figure and noting that the sum was paid to LaCivita’s firm rather than him directly, lawyers for LaCivita and the RNC “argue the article not only damaged LaCivita’s reputation but also hindered the RNC’s and the Trump campaign’s ability to fundraise,” according to Axios.

A spokesperson for the outlet told Axios that “The Beast is committed to following the money and reporting accurately on Chris LaCivita’s LLC, which received $19.2 million from the Trump campaign, the RNC and related super PACs, according to public records,” adding that “We stand by our journalist and will defend ourselves vigorously if necessary.”

In November, The Atlantic reported that “Trump was livid,” about the story and felt that it “made him look like a fool,” even banishing LaCivita from his plane and contemplating firing him. From the story:

LaCivita was abruptly summoned to Trump Tower on the morning of Friday, October 18. There, he found himself climbing into the lead car of the former president’s motorcade, a limousine in which Trump often rides alone to recharge between events. On this occasion, there was another passenger, the businessman Howard Lutnick, who had recently been named a co-chair of Trump’s White House transition team. The three of them made small talk all the way to LaGuardia Airport, as LaCivita waited for the hammer to drop. It felt, LaCivita would later tell several friends, like an episode of The Apprentice: beckoned by the boss, shoved into the limo with a spectator on hand, only to ride in suspense for what seemed like an eternity, believing that at any moment Trump would turn and say, “You’re fired.”

Instead, when they arrived at LaGuardia and boarded the campaign plane, Trump signaled for LaCivita to join him in the cramped, four-seat office at the front of the cabin. As they settled across from each other, Trump reached for a small stack of paper: a printout of the Daily Beast story. LaCivita, in turn, produced a much thicker stack of paper. These were the exhibits for the defense: Federal Election Commission reports, bank-account statements, pay stubs, vendor agreements, and more. For the next half hour, according to several sources with knowledge of the exchange, the two men had it out—profanities flying but voices kept intentionally low—as LaCivita insisted to Trump that he wasn’t ripping the candidate off. Trump, the sources said, seemed to vacillate between believing his employee and seething over the dollar figure, wondering how something so specific could be wrong. Finally, after a couple of concluding f-bombs, Trump seemed satisfied. “Okay, I get it, I get it,” he told LaCivita, holding up his hands as if requesting that the defense rest. He added: “You should sue those bastards.”

The LaCivita-Beast lawsuit would follow other, successful high-profile media lawsuits against Fox News, ABC News, and CNN — all of which ended with settlements.