George Papadopoulos was "the coffee boy" on the Trump campaign and "had no business" having a role on the team, former Trump campaign communications adviser Michael Caputo said Friday.
During an appearance on MSNBC, Caputo was asked about Papadopoulos and the role he played on the Trump campaign in the wake of his indictment for lying to the FBI about contacts he had with Russians. In his first meeting with Trump and others in March 2016, Papadopoulos offered to connect Trump with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"I called George Papadopoulos the coffee boy and people laugh at that, but anybody who has worked on campaigns knows these kinds of high-climbing young men and women who try to get a title and parlay it into meetings with higher officials or better jobs or dates," Caputo said.
"Donald Trump prided himself on running a lean and mean campaign. That group was put together in a way another campaign wouldn't do it. Papadopoulos had no business being there."
Caputo noted that Papadopoulos briefly worked on Ben Carson's campaign before joining Trump's campaign as a foreign policy adviser. According to his LinkedIn page, he is currently an independent oil, gas, and policy consultant and is a member of the International Presidential Business Advisory Council (Cyprus).
Caputo said Papadopoulos, who was reportedly approached by Russians on multiple occasions about setting up a meeting between Trump and Putin, had his proposal quickly shot down.
"This kid was foolish. He proposed something that nobody had any interest in," Caputo said. "If you think that Donald Trump sitting there silently and listening and nodding his head is some kind of idea that he thought it was a good idea to meet with Putin, you're exaggerating things. This kid brought up a stupid idea with a committee of foreign policy advisers, someone not even qualified to be there, and Donald Trump never saw him again."
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