Donald Trump and Roger Stone are personal friends, and have been so since 1980, when Roger Stone was heading the Northeast sector of Reagan’s campaign (he was running it with advice and counsel of Roy Cohn, who was Trump’s old lawyer).
Roger Stone will never say anything bad about Trump, and I am sure still supports him for President (Stone hates the Bush-Clinton regime, and the GOP establishment). But when Sam Nunberg was fired, who is an old associate of Stone, I suspected Stone was on his way out.
Reading between the lines, I suspect that there was an internal war going on between Nunberg and Michael Cohen for control, and Cohen must have gotten the support of Lewandowski, who must have made recommendations that fit more with what Trump wanted to do (i.e. the characterization of “yes-men”). Roger Stone is kind of his own man, and must have thought the recommendations were wrong and were hurting the campaign.
IMO, Roger Stone was always one of the most talented GOP operatives, but was a bit self-involved. He may be right that Trump is getting loose in the weeds and should stay on message now, but this is the summer silly season, and I don’t know whether anyone is listening to messages yet. In other words, Stone’s game plan is almost certainly right, but his timing might not be. After all, he is getting old, and things have changed.
One thing I would say is this - I’m almost certain that Trump will call Stone again for advice at some point on a personal level about the campaign, if not multiple times, especially when things go down for him a bit. Maybe he’ll even re-hire him.
How do we know that he (the master of dirty tricks) isn’t being planted in anothers field?