Michael Caputo, who worked as a strategist for Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and now serves as a pro-Trump cable news talking head, said Tuesday that he was considering a bid for the upstate New York seat now held by GOP Rep. Chris Collins. Collins, who is awaiting trial next year for insider trading, has said he’s still deciding whether to run again, and Caputo didn’t rule out challenging him in New York’s 27th District.
Caputo, a veteran of New York and national GOP politics, worked for Trump’s communications team until mid-2016, when he left after celebrating the firing of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski with a tweet reading, “Ding dong the witch is dead!”
Caputo remained involved in Trump world, though, and he ended up getting a small mention in Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Caputo, who had been interviewed by Mueller’s team and testified before Congress in 2017, responded to the release of the redacted version of the report by accusing the special prosecutor’s team of being “mischievous” towards him. Caputo also declared that “all the haters can go to Hell.”
As for Caputo’s 2020 plans, he told Politico, “If Rep. Collins will not run, or cannot win, I cannot allow this seat to go to someone who has not supported the president 100%, from the beginning, in their bones.” That might be a reference to state Sen. Chris Jacobs, who launched a primary bid against Collins last week. Jacobs refused to say during the 2016 campaign whether he would support Trump, and while he now presents himself as a Trump ally, Collins and his allies wasted no time labeling the challenger as a “never-Trumper.”
Caputo does seem reluctant to run against a few other Republicans, though. He told Spectrum News that he’s close to conservative radio host David Bellavia, Assemblyman David DiPietro, and 2010 gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino, and that he’d never want to have any of them to run against one another. Bellavia, who lost the 2012 primary to Collins, has been publicly considering another bid, while Spectrum says the others “have expressed interest” in running here in the past.
Spectrum adds that Tea Party organizer Rus Thompson, who like Caputo worked for Paladino’s 2010 campaign, has said on social media that he’s considering. In 2017, Thompson accepted a plea deal where, in exchange for prosecutors dropping felony charges against him, he admitted to illegally voting in a community where he no longer resided: Thompson ended up getting sentenced to three years of probation. Caputo said of a Thompson congressional campaign, “He can add to the discussion,” and called him “a smart guy with energy,” but he didn’t say he wouldn’t run against him.
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