R.I. chair for Trump campaign fired from WLNE sales job

A Republican firebrand selected to serve as an "honorary state chair" of President Trump's reelection campaign in Rhode Island said Tuesday that her employer, WLNE, had fired her for accepting the unpaid campaign position.

Doreen Costa, a former lawmaker, said the station had warned her about a week ago that taking the leadership position would lead to her firing. Nonetheless, she said, on Friday, she told WLNE, also known as ABC6, that she would serve as one of the campaign's chairs, providing a timely notification that set the stage for her termination on Monday.

Costa said she was fired about an hour before the campaign announced her new role. Developer Gerald Zarrella was also named as an honorary state chair of the Trump campaign on Monday.

The station's decision, said Costa, was unnecessary and it unfairly ended a happy and productive period of employment that had begun in late January of 2019

“This is a First Amendment issue,” Costa told The Providence Journal during an interview.

She would not say how she will respond to her termination, saying "stay tuned."

The station’s general manager, Tina Marie Castano, declined to comment on the situation, saying she cannot comment on personnel matters.

Costa asserted that WLNE was well aware of her political activities before it hired her in January, and her contacts in Republican circles were seen as an advantage for bringing in advertising revenue come political season.

Her political background encompasses a recent stint on North Kingstown’s Town Council from 2016 to 2018 and service as a state representative from 2010 to 2016.

Her first legislative victory was getting the House to pass a resolution she sponsored requiring the state to refer to the evergreens that are erected in the State House during the holiday season as Christmas trees.

As the state Republican Party's finance director in 2013, she helped organize the Rhode Island GOP’s attempt to raise money by raffling off guns, including Smith & Wesson’s version of the AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle linked to the Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre. While the move stirred controversy, even within state Republican ranks, the fundraising event itself was plugged as a success.

The lifelong Rhode Islander did not shrink from expressing her political views, including her support for Trump, after she landed at ABC6, on her mother’s birthday.

For example, she made appearances on WSBE’s “A Lively Experiment.”

“In case you guys didn’t get the memo, he’s still your president,” Costa said when the conversation turned to the Mueller probe on a show in July.

“The Democrats,” Costa said at another juncture, “can’t face that Donald Trump is their president.”

During such appearances, she said she made sure she complied with a policy that barred her from mentioning the station’s name in connection with political activity.

Costa said her professional career has focused on selling advertising since 2008.

And as she settled in at WLNE, she said she worked “extraordinarily hard,” sold advertising and was praised for her sales work as recently as last week.

“I give 110 percent,” she said.

Costa did not mention the situation at ABC6 in an interview with The Journal on Monday night. When she was asked what she expects to do in her new unpaid role, she said: "Spreading the message about Donald Trump.

"We've got to keep his name out there ... go door to door, get the rally situated for when he does come down here and ... call out the fake news all the time. If we see a story that we know is not right, you know we'll double-check it and triple-check it and then call the people out because I think he's getting a bum rap all around."

"Like for instance, he wanted to have the [G7] summit at one of his resorts. He wasn't going to charge anybody. He was going to save the taxpayers millions and billions of dollars ... They didn't report he was going to do it for free,'' she said.

(A Trump organization spokesman was not as definitive in a statement to The New York Times: "This is a perfect example of no good deed goes unpunished. It will likely end up costing the U.S. government 10 times the amount elsewhere, as we would have either done it at cost or contributed it to the United States for free if legally allowed.”)

"They don't report anything good that this man does,'' Costa said. "He could save every kitten and puppy in the entire universe and they would still trash him for some apparent reason."