Fired White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was "ultimately responsible" for the leaks coming from the White House, and his replacement, retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, was brought in to make sure the leaks didn't continue, President Donald Trump's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said Tuesday.
"The president's frustration was probably with the amount of leaking coming from the White House," Lewandowski, who remains close to the president despite being let go from the campaign last summer, told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program.
"At the end of the day, and I have been there, the top of the food chain, the person on the top of this is going to be responsible for everything that happened down further."
If Priebus, the former Republican National Committee chairman, could not control the leaks, then he was the one "ultimately responsible."
Lewandowski, though, said there's usually not just one thing when it comes to a decision from Trump, but rather the "totality of the circumstances."
"If you look at what it was, the president for the last couple weeks has talked about the need to make a change," Lewandowski said. "He waited for the healthcare vote to happen. That healthcare vote was unsuccessful, which is something that the administration wanted to get done. The repeal bill. That didn't happen. So what that means was let's look at a new opportunity to go forward."
Meanwhile, Kelly is a "person who literally went and took over Fallujah," and is a "no joke, no games kind of guy," who will walk into the staff and tell them everyone will report to him.
But Kelly won't be looking to change Trump, said Lewandowski, as "that would be a mistake. Donald Trump has been successful at everything he has done for the last 40 years, — whether it's real estate, whether it's books, whether it's television, whether it's running for the first time or his kids. No one wants to change Donald Trump."
Lewandowski also discussed the decision to fire Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, saying that as the New Yorker has been a "steadfast supporter" of Trump, the president will likely find him another spot in his administration.
"There are a lot of jobs out there in the administration," said Lewandowski.
He also contended that the mainstream media is the only people wanting to talk about the White House chaos.
"They don't want to talk about what's actually going out in the real world which is the stock market is through the roof, right?" said Lewandowski. "Businesses are growing. We need to get tax reform done. Everyone in Middle America is going to be better off in the Trump administration than the Clinton administration. Let's take the focus and the spotlight off the administration and small changes taking place and put back on America what it really needs."
Lewandowski also responded to reports claiming that senior adviser Jared Kushner and his wife, Trump's daughter Ivanka, brought Scaramucci in to push out Priebus.
"I think [White House press secretary] Sarah Huckabee Sanders talked about it yesterday," said Lewandowski. "The type of language that Anthony used in that article that he talked on, with the reporter is really inappropriate. I think the administration looked at that and said this is probably not the right thing for us."
Scaramucci, though, is "that New York tough kind of guy," and he also called out White House strategist Steve Bannon in his complaints to "The New Yorker."
"You have to remember these are your colleagues you have to work with every day," he said. "It's difficult to call someone out and show up to work the next day."