'Masterminds' shaping Trump’s policy have 'deep ties' to Newt Gingrich: report

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R) shakes hands with Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump during a rally at the Sharonville Convention Center July 6, 2016, in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images)

Less than one month ahead of Donald Trump's 2016 election victory, Vox reporter Tara Golshan noted that as someone who covered the former president's campaign, she can "attest" that he typically "goes off script," spewing "rambling remarks" usually "full of digressions and hard-to-follow tangents."

Eight years later, Axios notes in a May 26 report that a recent analysis by the news outlet found that with his tendency to go off script, Trump "spends just 11% of the time talking about his policy plans."

However, two of the ex-president's current campaign speechwriters — Vince Haley and Ross Worthington — are still up for the challenge.

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"The masterminds behind most of Trump's policy statements," Axios reports, the pair "worked under Stephen Miller in the Trump White House," and both worked on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's 2012 presidential campaign.

Per the report, Haley was policy director and campaign manager for Gingrich's campaign, while Worthington served as deputy communications director.

Worthington also co-authored a book with Gingrich, Axios notes.

The news outlet reports, "Haley and Worthington write the first drafts of scripts Trump uses to record policy videos as well as the text on how a second Trump administration would handle issues from education to energy and immigration."

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Axios adds, "Those videos and corresponding text on his website go into far more detail than Trump, who famously has little interest in policy, does on the stump."

Axios' full report is available here.

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