Donald Trump Spars With Former Top Aide Over Exit

Donald Trump is parting ways with Roger Stone, one of his top political advisers, the pair announced separately Saturday, but the terms of split are far from clear.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump said he fired Stone, a self-professed political hit-man and GOP operative dating back to Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign. Stone, for his part, said he resigned Friday over the Republican front-runner’s criticism of Fox News host Megyn Kelly.

“Mr. Trump fired Roger Stone last night,” a Trump campaign spokesperson said, blaming the split on Stone’s self-promotion. “We have a tremendously successful campaign and Roger wanted to use the campaign for his own personal publicity. He has had a number of articles about him recently and Mr. Trump wants to keep the focus of the campaign on how to Make America Great Again.”

Stone pushed back on the report in a tweet, and released what he said was his letter of resignation to Trump:

“Unfortunately, the current controversies involving personalities and provocative media fights have reached such a high volume that it has distracted attention from your platform and overwhelmed your core message,” Stone wrote. “With this current direction of the candidacy, I no longer can remain involved in your campaign.”

Stone is the second Trump operative to leave the campaign in recent weeks, following the exit of aide Sam Nunberg amid the revelation of controversial social media postings.