Trump's once again surrounding himself with criminals and cranks

For months now, Donald Trump's inner circle has been trying to sell us on the notion that they're running a much tighter campaign this time around. And the media has run with it: "Trump's 2024 campaign has been notable for its rigor: Top advisers have largely steered clear of the most controversial far-righters who surrounded Trump in the past," says Axios in their latest story about the campaign, published Wednesday.

Except you can consider all of the Trump campaign's self-praise rescinded. That sentence was dubiously wedged into an Axios piece premised on—wait for it—all of those far-right cranks scurrying right back into Donald's inner circle.

Trump's team is in talks to hire 2016 campaign advisers Paul Manafort and Corey Lewandowski, The Washington Post and The New York Times first reported.

Manafort spent two years in prison on a 7½-year sentence for bank and tax fraud before being freed because of the COVID pandemic.

Lewandowski, who was fired in 2016 as Trump's first campaign manager, was removed from a pro-Trump PAC in 2021 after the wife of a major donor accused him of inappropriate behavior.