Sam Clovis (file photo)
Sam Clovis, the former Morningside College economics professor who was co-chair of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, is leaving his post in the U.S.D.A.
Politico was first to report today is Clovis’ last day in the agency where he’d been serving as a policy advisor since Trump took office. Last month, Clovis was back in Iowa joking with a conservative group about his time in the nation’s capitol.
“One of the great things about Washington, D.C….the best part of it is being not there,” Clovis said, prompting laughter. “…I feel like I received a sentence to a federal minimum security prison and about every six weeks I get to come out for a conjugal visit.”
Clovis’ wife did not move to D.C. and stayed in the couple’s home in Hinton. Clovis, who ran in the Iowa GOP’s 2014 U.S. Senate primary and was the Iowa Republican Party’s nominee for treasurer that fall, joined Trump’s presidential campaign in August of 2015.
“I have lived out of a suitcase for four-and-a-half of the last five years,” Clovis said. “I reflect back on my personal suare into politics and I still think that it has to be an Iowa phenomenon that a person can lose to elections and have their politics go up.”
On April 11, Clovis told the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale that he was “tired of being dragged through the knothole” by the national media. President Trump had nominated Clovis to serve as the U.S.D.A.’s chief science officer, but Clovis withdrew his nomination last fall after his views on climate change were challenged by some Democrats in the senate. When Clovis spoke in Iowa last month, he reminisced about being around Trump. Trump is “an easy man to read, once you get to know him,” according to Clovis.
“He’s one of the most intelligent men I’ve ever had the pleasure of being around and he’s funny and he’s exciting,” Clovis said. “There are days when he’s like a well-struck three wood in a tile bathroom…but I never had a moment when I doubted his sincerity…and I don’t know why anybody in this country is surprised. He’s doing exactly what he said he was going to do.”
Clovis had an office in Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign. His title was national co-chair and chief policy advisor. Clovis said it’s been a “remarkable, life-changing experience.”
“Most of it because of the tens of thousands of people I had the opportunity to meet, the chance to participate in something significant in history,” Clovis said on April 11. “And I will tell you one of the greatest experiences of my life is being personally involved in getting a person elected President of the United States.”
A spokesperson for the U.S.DA. wished Clovis well on his “endeavors back home in Iowa” and called Clovis “a good man…who has served his country admirably.”