Trump Axes Campaign Manager as Rating Drops

(CN) - Donald Trump's controversial campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, left the campaign on Monday, following repeated missteps by the candidate and the plummeting of his ratings in the polls.

"Lewandowski will no longer be working with the campaign," Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said early Monday, saying the campaign was grateful for his dedication and hard work on presumptive GOP nominee's behalf.

This afternoon, Lewandowski himself said he "a nice conversation with Mr. Trump" while the candidate was firing him.

Lewandowski had a heady run as Trump's campaign chief, presiding over the billionaire real estate developer's unexpected rise to the top of the GOP field for president, but also proving to be a lightening rod for controversy.

In March, he was charged with misdemeanor battery after a Breitbart News former reporter says he manhandled her as she tried to ask the candidate a question at a campaign event in Palm Beach, Fla. That charge was later dropped.

Then in April, a veteran GOP operative sued Donald Trump and his campaign manager in New York on Monday for falsely portraying her as a spurned job seeker who has trashed him in the media only after she wasn't hired as his communications director.

In a complaint filed in New York Supreme Court, Cheri Jacobus said Trump and campaign manager Corey Lewandowski knowingly impugned her reputation in retaliation for her criticisms of Trump's performance as a candidate.

On Monday, in the aftermath of his firing by the campaign, New Hampshire Republican Party officials announced that Lewandowski remains chairman of the state's 23 convention delegates. Of that number, 11 are pledged to Trump.

.Lewandowski was elected chair by his fellow delegates in May, a position he will continue to hold unless he resigns, the state party said.

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