How a golf caddie became Trump's campaign confidantBy Chris Moody,
CNN Senior Digital Correspondent, Video by Alexander Rosen, CNN
Updated 7:33 AM ET, Fri April 29, 2016
(CNN)Daniel Scavino was working a high school job cleaning golf clubs at the Briar Hall Country Club in New York's Hudson Valley when a man who would change his life pulled into the parking lot in a stretch limousine.
The visitor was business mogul Donald Trump, who, at that time in 1990, was famous as a flashy real estate developer, not a politician. The course where Scavino worked was heading into foreclosure, and Trump was in the market for expanding his golf business. Scavino, a lucky 16-year-old who happened to be in the right place at the right time, was selected caddie for Trump's party. He was instantly smitten. No one will ever believe this at school on Monday, he thought.
That day on the course with Trump would eventually set him on a career path with the mogul's growing empire and, years later, place him squarely into Trump's inner circle. In his late 20s, Scavino was promoted to general manager of Trump National Golf Club at the same course where he started as a caddie. He would travel the world with Trump visiting course and he appeared on a golf-themed episode of "The Apprentice."
In February, Trump tapped Scavino, now in his 40s, to direct the rapidly growing social media operation for his presidential campaign, putting him at the tip of the spear of Trump's unwieldy—and controversial--communication strategy. Scavino has largely remained in the background of the campaign, but he sat down with CNN for an in-depth interview at the Trump National Golf Club in Hudson Valley where he provided an exclusive look at life within Trump's inner circle and described Trump's unorthodox media strategies.
n many ways, Scavino is a near-perfect walking example of a Trump insider. With his slicked hair, custom suits and solid-color ties, he wears the unofficial uniform of Trump's devoted campaign workers. Posts on his own personal Facebook and Twitter pages reveal a man wholly devoted to Trump, a signature calling card of the early adopters of his presidential campaign.
Trump on Twitter
Much like his boss' campaign, there's nothing traditional about Trump's approach to social media. His Twitter account, full of random musings, exclamation points, shoot-from-the-hip insults and grammar mistakes, is an unvarnished extension of his public persona. His posts, which can change the course of entire news cycles, break just about every campaign rule. While the previous Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, had a team of more than 20 advisers reviewing every tweet, Trump's musings often come unfiltered, straight from the source. Scavino often only hears about them after they're posted through an alert on his phone. ...
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