Former McCain campaign manager joins Showtime’s ‘The Circus’

Steve Schmidt, the former presidential campaign manager for the late Sen. John McCain, is joining Showtime’s political docuseries “The Circus” as a contributor for the show’s third season.

The MSNBC political analyst and staunch critic of President Trump announced in June that he was leaving the Republican Party due to his opposition to the president.

{mosads}Schmidt, who has called the president an “ignorant, naive fool on the world stage,” will appear in several of the show’s nine episodes this season.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, journalists John Heilemann and Alex Wagner, and political strategist Mark McKinnon, who co-host “The Circus,” were tight-lipped on the content of the show’s upcoming season.

“The Circus,” which is produced by Showtime and Bloomberg Politics, was launched in 2016 ahead of the U.S. presidential election.

One of the show’s original co-hosts, Mark Halperin, departed the series amid sexual harassment allegations last year. He was replaced by former MSNBC host and current “CBS This Morning Saturday” co-host Wagner.

“We’re going to be looking at how Trump and Trumpism has affected and shaped both parties,” Wagner told the Reporter in an interview published Thursday. 

According to the outlet, the show’s third season will focus largely on November’s midterm elections.

“We’re going to be coast to coast, all over the country, trying to give people a sense of how these midterms are going to play out,” Heilemann told the Reporter.

The new season for “The Circus” kicks off Sunday night.