TETERBORO, N.J. -- Donald Trump announced a shake-up of his campaign leadership, the second in two months, hiring a top executive from the website Breitbart News and promoting a senior adviser.

The Republican nominee named Stephen Bannon of Breitbart News, a self-described conservative news and opinion website, as chief executive officer and promoted pollster Kellyanne Conway to campaign manager. The moves signal that Trump plans to embrace his populist, outsider persona in the campaign's final stretch rather than moderate and extend a hand to more traditional Republicans.

"I've known both of them for a long time. They're terrific people, they're winners, they're champs, and we need to win it," Trump said in a phone interview Wednesday morning.

Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign chairman, will retain his title. But advisers with information of the shake-up described his status internally as diminished.

"I want to win," Trump told The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the shake-up. "That's why I'm bringing on fantastic people who know how to win and love to win."

In announcing the leadership moves, Trump said Bannon would now oversee the campaign staff and operations, raising questions about Manafort's role going forward.

"I believe we're adding some of the best talents in politics, with the experience and expertise needed to defeat Hillary Clinton in November and continue to share my message and vision to Make America Great Again," the candidate said in a statement issued later Wednesday morning.

The campaign played down the notion that Trump was reacting to the polls or saw his bid in crisis.

"These announcements come at a time of significant growth for Mr. Trump's campaign, with the first major TV ad buy of the general election slated to start later this week and with additional top-flight operatives joining the movement on a near-daily basis," the campaign said in the statement.

Manafort has spent months trying to ingratiate Trump to Republican lawmakers who have urged the businessman to dial back his outspoken rhetoric and run a more traditional campaign.

Bannon's website has praised Trump's campaign for months and also has been critical of Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. While Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs banker, does not have presidential-campaign experience, he shares Trump's approach to politics.

Conway joined Trump's campaign earlier this year as a senior adviser. A longtime Republican strategist and pollster, she has close ties to Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday at Trump Tower, Conway called the changes "an expansion" at "an incredibly busy time going into the last 12-week home stretch for the campaign, and we look at personnel as more is more."

She described herself, Bannon, Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates, who has been traveling often with Trump and is expected to retain a senior role, as the "core four."

A frequent cable news presence who views the campaign's battles with the media as a distraction, Conway now is expected to travel with Trump, filling a void created when Corey Lewandowski, his former campaign manager, was fired June 20.

'Wants to win'

Lewandowski, now a commentator for CNN, on Wednesday praised Bannon's addition to the campaign and suggested it would lead to a more aggressive approach.

"You've got a candidate who wants to win. This is a clear indication of that. If you look at Stephen Bannon and what they've built at Breitbart, it's win at all costs," Lewandowski said. "And I think that really makes some people on the left very afraid because they're willing to say and do things that others in the mainstream media wouldn't do."

"The campaign wants to prove to the Clinton people that they're going to take this fight directly to her," he added.

Sean Spicer, chief strategist at the Republican National Committee, said in an interview Wednesday that the national party is already working with the new high command and remains fully committed to supporting Trump's candidacy in the coming months.

"The campaign is expanding and bringing in more senior people in the final stretch. Obviously that's a healthy thing," Spicer said, noting that he spoke with Bannon by phone late Tuesday and remains in close touch with the new Trump CEO by email.

But Rick Wilson, a GOP consultant working for independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin, said angst was evident Wednesday morning in a round of phone calls to his friends on Capitol Hill. He predicted that the Republican National Committee would be pressured to eventually distance itself from Bannon and then possibly from Trump, in order to protect other GOP candidates across the country.

"If you were looking for a tone or pivot, Bannon will pivot you in a dark, racist and divisive direction. It'll be a nationalist, hateful campaign," Wilson said. "Republicans should run away."

But former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani talked up the campaign shuffle during an interview Wednesday morning with Fox News, suggesting that the moves could inject new energy into Trump's campaign.

"I don't think it's about strategy, I think it's about management, making sure you have the right number of people in place to manage an organization that has grown dramatically," he said.

Manafort discussed the changes in a conference call Wednesday morning and sounded upbeat, according to one person briefed on the call. He has told others that he is content with the changes and does not consider them destabilizing.

In a statement, Manafort said that he is sure the additions will "undoubtedly help take the campaign to new levels of success."

"Buckle up," wrote a Trump strategist in a text message Wednesday to The Washington Post.

The moves were hammered out beginning Sunday in meetings at Trump's golf club at Bedminster, N.J. Roger Ailes, former chairman of Fox News, also met with Trump that day and he will be part of efforts to prepare Trump in his debate against Clinton and other tasks, according to three people briefed on the discussions.

Trump being Trump

The campaign shake-up comes as polls show Trump trailing Clinton nationally and in key battleground states after a difficult campaign stretch that saw him criticizing the Muslim parents of a U.S. Army soldier who died in Iraq and temporarily refraining from endorsing Ryan in his Wisconsin primary race.

While Trump's campaign staff publicly says there is plenty of time left for the Republican to change the trajectory of the race, the candidate is facing a shrinking timeline. Early voting begins in a handful of states in September.

A source familiar with the candidate's thinking said Trump has become increasingly frustrated by poll numbers, his advisers' attempts to moderate his style and what he views as disloyalty from Republicans who failed to come to his aid. The candidate believes he can right his campaign by being himself, keeping up a schedule of rallies, and being more aggressive on the stump, said the source, who was not authorized to speak about campaign conversations publicly.

Supporters in the "let Trump be Trump" camp heralded the moves.

The addition of Bannon and Conway marks "a great day for Donald Trump because he can now be free to continue speaking truth to power," said David Bossie, the leader of a pro-Trump super political action committee. "He believes he should stay true to what got him this far. It's essentially, 'dance with the one who brung ya.'"

Clinton dismissed the new leadership as meaningless.

"I think it's fair to say that Donald Trump has shown us who he is. He can hire and fire anyone he wants from his campaign, they can make him read new words from a teleprompter, but he is still the same man," she said at a campaign stop in Cleveland. "There is no new Donald Trump. This is it."

Separately, Trump's campaign announced Tuesday that it would begin airing its first ads of the general election next week in the battleground states of Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

At the annual meeting of the Republican Governors Association in Colorado on Tuesday, Pence used his keynote speech to offer "encouragement" -- a word he used several times -- and reassurance to the crowd.

"We're still winning hearts and minds every day despite an avalanche of negative media coverage," Pence said during the closed session, according to an audio recording of his remarks.

Security briefing

Trump, meanwhile, received his first classified intelligence briefing Wednesday, meeting with national-security officials for more than two hours.

He became entitled to the briefings once he officially became the Republican nominee for president. The briefing was delivered by career staff members from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and was expected to cover major threats and emerging concerns around the world.

The afternoon briefing was held at an FBI field office at a federal building in New York City, a facility which has the secure rooms required for such sensitive briefings. Trump did not speak to reporters upon entering or exiting the building and a campaign spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the briefing.

But Trump, in an interview that aired just hours before the briefing, suggested he would be skeptical of its contents when he was asked if he trusted the nation's intelligence materials.

"Not so much from the people that have been doing it for our country," Trump told Fox News. "I mean, look what's happened over the last 10 years ... it's been catastrophic."

Trump took along some top advisers, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, to the briefing. A U.S. intelligence official said that generally, advisers who attend the briefings must have appropriate security clearances. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to disclose information about the candidates' intelligence briefings.

The Defense Intelligence Agency says that the agency maintains security clearances for all its former directors, including Flynn, who served in the post from 2012-14.

It wasn't clear whether Clinton has received an intelligence briefing.

Information for this article was contributed by Julie Pace, Jill Colvin, Jonathan Lemire, Julie Bykowicz and Ken Thomas of The Associated Press; by Ashley Parker and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times; and by Robert Costa, Jose A. DelReal and Jenna Johnson of The Washington Post.

A Section on 08/18/2016