What’s in it for me? Lift the lid on Trump’s White House.
Few people spent more time with Donald Trump during his first years in office than Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the administration’s press secretary from 2017 to 2019.
Sanders first met Donald Trump on the campaign trail in 2016.
Later, as his trusted advisor, she helped the president formulate policy, select personnel, and communicate his vision to the public.
From historic summits to backroom strategy meetings, Sanders was rarely far from the scene of action.
Whether you agree or disagree with Sanders’s politics, it’s safe to say that few people on this planet have more insight into the thinking, tics, and motivations of the most powerful man on earth.
And that’s just what we’ll be delving into in these blinks as we explore what went down in Trump’s White House.
Along the way, you’ll learn how exactly Sanders ended up on Trump’s team; why journalists try to make the news rather than just report it; and what Trump really thinks of Russia and Vladimir Putin.
December 24, 2018.
Sanders was on the frontlines of the decision-making process for the Trump administration.
It was late, and the Sanders family was exhausted.
Sarah Sanders had spent the day in the kitchen.
She’d served up a memorable feast with a Southern twist: slow-cooked brisket, hash brown casserole, spaghetti squash, gravy, and a bourbon chocolate pecan pie.
Her three kids were already tucked up in bed.
Bryan, her husband, had just started reading them a story when her phone rang.
“I hate to do this,” she said after hanging up, “but I have to leave.
” It was a phrase the family had gotten used to hearing over the previous 18 months.
As Donald Trump’s press secretary, things were always coming up.
It was Sanders’s job to deal with them – Christmas or not.
The key message in this blink is: Sanders was on the frontlines of the decision-making process for the Trump administration.
After receiving the call Sanders drove to a naval base in Maryland, where she joined Trump and his senior advisors on Air Force One – a Boeing 747 that serves as a mobile presidential command center.
Air Force One is usually lit up like a Christmas tree, but tonight was different.
It took off with its lights off.
Inside, all electronic devices had been disabled.
The president and his inner circle were off the grid.
A Secret Service agent revealed their destination: a military base in Anbar Province, Iraq, the frontline of America’s war against the terror group ISIS.
This was hostile territory, he concluded, and they should be prepared to seek cover from enemy fire after disembarking.
Luckily, Air Force One landed without incident.
Sanders accompanied the president to a dining hall packed with soldiers getting ready for a Christmas feast of their own.
If they couldn’t spend the evening with their families, Trump was going to give them the next best thing – a meal with America’s First Family.
The trip to Anbar wasn’t just about boosting morale.
Trump was also there to authorize a final push against ISIS.
He believed that defeating this notorious group in Iraq was more important than getting involved in the Syrian civil war – a course of action many senators back home were demanding.
By late March 2019, the soldiers Trump had spent Christmas night with had completed their task.
ISIS had been crushed and its caliphate eradicated.
They were coming home, just as the president had pledged they would.
It was exactly this kind of boldness that had made Sanders want to work for Trump.
Let’s think back to Thursday, November 9, 2016 – the day after the greatest political upset in America’s history.
Sanders joined Trump’s team after a decade of work to elect a Republican president.
The Democrats are shell-shocked.
The media can’t believe it.
Everything had pointed toward a victory for Hillary Clinton.
But the polls and experts were wrong.
Donald J.
Trump is now the president-elect.
But Trump can’t afford to savor the moment – it’s time to start planning for government.
That means filling posts in the incoming administration.
He spends the day making calls.
One of the names on his list is Sarah Sanders, a senior advisor to the Trump campaign during the election.
He offers her the position of White House deputy press secretary.
Accepting means upending her plan to return to her home in Arkansas, but Sanders can’t refuse – it’s the chance of a lifetime.
The key message here is: Sanders joined Trump’s team after a decade of work to elect a Republican president.
Sanders knows a thing or two about political upsets.
Take her father, Mike Huckabee.
In 1996, he became only the second Republican governor of Arkansas in over a hundred years.
That was the same year another Arkansas native – Bill Clinton – was reelected as president of the United States.
Huckabee didn’t just buck more than a century of tradition – he also flipped the incumbent’s home state!
Sanders followed her father into politics after graduating from university in 2004.
Set on changing the world, she went to Washington and began working her way up the ladder.
But her big break came back in Arkansas.
In 2007, Huckabee threw his hat into the ring to become the next Republican nominee for the presidency.
Sanders headed his campaign, racking up a series of viral electoral ads and even landing Chuck Norris’s endorsement.
Her work helped transform Huckabee from an also-ran into a serious contender.
Huckabee ultimately fell short, but he made enough of an impression to give it another go in 2015.
Once again, he appointed his daughter as his campaign manager.
But after nine months, it was clear he didn’t stand a chance.
He dropped out.
But Sanders wasn’t at a loose end for long.
Recognizing her passion, Trump asked her to join his campaign team.
Like many Americans, she didn’t think Trump was perfect – in fact, far from it.
But a head-to-head contest between Clinton and Trump was an easy call.
She was convinced America would be better off under the Republican candidate.
Sanders was the go-between for Donald Trump and the media.
Donald Trump usually starts tweeting around 6:30 a.
m.
So, if it’s your job to explain his policies to the world, you have to be up by 5:30 a.
m.
That gives you an hour’s head start – enough time to catch up on emails, get the kids ready for school, and grab a quick shower before things get crazy.
After that, it’s all a blur.
You kiss your husband and children goodbye, jump into the car and start calling White House staffers.
What’s the latest gossip?
What’s the administration’s agenda?
And with a bit of luck, you’ll be in your office in the West Wing by 7:45 a.
m.
– just in time for the first staff meeting of the day.
By 8:30 a.
m.
, you’re up to speed and two pots of coffee down.
Time for a break?
Nope.
The day’s just starting.
The key message in this blink is: Sanders was the go-between for Donald Trump and the media.
Everything Sanders did each morning during her two-year stint as Trump’s press secretary was in preparation for one thing: the daily press briefing.
These briefings take place in the afternoon and are attended by around 150 reporters.
Briefings are an opportunity for the White House to explain its policies as well as a chance for journalists to grill the government on the issues of the day.
It’s no secret that there’s little love lost between Trump and the press.
That’s why he loves Twitter – the platform lets him talk to voters directly without anyone twisting his words.
But you can’t run an administration on social media; however hostile it is, you need the press.
Managing this tricky relationship was down to Sanders.
The stakes were high.
When a press secretary slips up, it causes a scandal.
Instead of setting a positive agenda, the administration goes into damage-control mode and gets nothing done for the rest of the news cycle.
Presenting policies was the easy part.
Few officials spent more time with the president than Sanders.
Trump understood that she needed to be in the room when he made decisions.
That gave her a better understanding of his thinking, which in turn helped her articulate his message to the American people.
Fielding questions was trickier.
The problem wasn’t just the notoriously combative nature of press briefing Q&A sessions.
You can always prepare for difficult questions.
But as we’ll learn in the next blink, the real issue was journalists who saw these briefings as a chance to boost their careers.
Some press pool reporters were more interested in making news than reporting it.
Reporters with access to the White House are part of the press pool – a reference to the converted indoor swimming pool that now hosts press briefings.
The pool contains around 500 credentialed journalists, and it has its fair share of sharks.
These are the toughest, smartest, and hungriest news reporters in the country.
They circle the Press Office waiting for a chance to strike.
Careers are made in the pool.
Under previous presidents, briefings were pretty uneventful.
Only C-SPAN, a nonprofit public service, bothered airing them.
But in the age of Trump, every major network carries live coverage.
Clips are rebroadcast throughout the day and regularly go viral on social media.
Catch the administration out and your gotcha moment is likely to become a global sensation.
The key message in this blink is: Some press pool reporters were more interested in making news than reporting it.
Reporters like to believe that what they do is all about reporting the facts.
And, true enough, that is what many of them spend their days doing.
But the industry has a dirty secret: news is often secondary.
What really matters is making money.
That was a problem for CNN.
The network was quick to position itself as the voice of opposition to Trump, but that market had already been cornered by MSNBC.
In TV, ratings are king, and CNN’s were dead last.
The network’s solution to this problem was simple: escalation.
Enter Jim Acosta, CNN’s chief White House correspondent.
Acosta realized that press briefings were an opportunity.
Making a scene on live TV, locking horns with Sanders, and posing endless questions about the latest fake news connecting Trump and a Russian conspiracy burnished his image as a fearless truth teller.
Ratings improved, and suddenly lucrative TV and book deals appeared on the horizon.
As press briefings increasingly became all about the Jim Acosta show, standards quickly began to slip.
After one clash with Sanders, Acosta even invented a story about Trump being angry with her because of her performance during a briefing.
In fact, Trump had called her into his private dining room to congratulate her on her best performance yet.
Ivanka Trump complained to CNN personally.
The network, however, refused to correct the story, which frustrated Sanders.
Instead, CNN cited a dubious “source close to the White House,” giving it greater weight than an official government statement contradicting that so-called source!
Sanders was at Trump’s side for the historic North Korea–United States summit.
August in Washington is slow.
It’s hot and humid and, with Congress on recess, it’s a bit of a ghost town.
If you’re in politics, there’s not much to keep you in the nation’s capital.
It was no different in 2017.
The West Wing was being renovated, and there was little the new Trump administration could do until Congress reopened at the end of the month.
Sanders accompanied the president to his private club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The club boasts a luscious golf course, a poolside café which serves piping hot chocolate chip cookies topped with ice cream, and chatty members.
In short, it’s the perfect place to while away summer afternoons.
But the calm didn’t last – a crisis was brewing.
The key message in this blink is: Sanders was at Trump’s side for the historic North Korea–United States summit.
North Korea has long been a thorn in the side of American presidents.
When Barack Obama left office in early 2017, he warned his successor that this rogue state was a dangerous threat to the United States.
Trump adopted a policy of maximum pressure and pushed a new round of aggressive sanctions through the United Nations Security Council.
In August, North Korea threatened retaliation against Washington – a menacing prospect from a nation close to developing viable nuclear weapons.
Trump rushed back to Washington and issued a statement which Sanders helped write.
It warned North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, that an act of aggression would result in the “total annihilation” of his country.
This tough stance was enough to talk Kim off the ledge.
Having demonstrated that the US wouldn’t be pushed around, Trump went on a charm offensive.
He made Kim an offer.
If he denuclearized his nation, Trump would help him attract investors to North Korea.
In the summer of 2018, Kim agreed to a summit with Trump – the first ever direct meeting between a North Korean leader and an American president.
Sanders was present at this historic occasion.
Her memory of the leaders’ lunch, however, is slightly surreal.
At one point, Kim finished speaking and his interpreter took over.
Sanders looked up and realized the dictator was staring at her.
They made eye contact, at which point Kim nodded and gave her a wink.
Was he trying to flirt with her?
When Sanders told Trump, he exploded in delighted laughter.
The dictator of North Korea had just hit on his press secretary!
Sanders was harassed by intolerant liberals.
By the summer of 2018, the administration’s opponents seemed to be losing the plot.
Inside the White House, staffers called it “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” or TDS.
Unable to land a blow on Trump, liberals were lashing out.
A hail of unsubstantiated accusations of conspiracies, plots, and treachery rained down on the president.
It wasn’t just Trump who was in the firing line, anyone close to him was fair game.
When Brett Kavanaugh was nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court, for example, Democrats cross-examined him on the most intimate details of his private life.
When did he lose his virginity?
When did he first have sex with his wife?
The questions served no political purpose; they were designed to humiliate Trump’s nominee.
Sanders, the public voice of Trump’s government, was another target.
The key message in this blink is: Sanders was harassed by intolerant liberals.
Life in Washington was hectic.
In June, Sanders met up with her family in a restaurant called the Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia.
She was looking forward to some downtime, but there was no escaping politics in the age of TDS.
When the owner of the restaurant recognized Sanders, she launched into an angry tirade, calling the press secretary a terrible person and kicking her out of the restaurant.
The family tried to settle their bill but were refused – their money was tainted.
When they retreated to a second restaurant across the road, a crowd followed them and continued harassing them.
The story went viral.
Lots of folks were appalled.
Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary for George W.
Bush, warned that this kind of behavior would lead to the creation of Democrat-only and Republican-only restaurants.
Was that, he asked, really the kind of country these people wanted?
It was, apparently.
Democratic senator Maxine Waters went on TV and urged people to “push back” on administration officials in restaurants, department stores, and gas stations.
Many liberals heeded her advice.
Sanders’s husband was kicked out of his fantasy football league because his wife worked for Trump.
And when Sanders took her kids to school another mom called her an “awful human being” before spitting on her windshield.
These kinds of incidents were repeated across the country.
Despite preaching tolerance, it was liberals who were becoming more and more intolerant.
The Mueller report failed to fulfill its purpose of toppling Trump.
The greatest threat to the Trump administration didn’t come from its political opponents but from the legal investigation they hoped would topple him: the Mueller report.
Commissioned to look into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Special Counsel Robert Mueller had almost unlimited power and resources to go after Trump and his team.
His investigation took three years and left no stone unturned.
Even Sanders was subjected to a six-hour grilling by Mueller’s agents.
But despite the huge scope of his undertaking, he failed to turn up evidence of wrongdoing by Trump or his allies.
That was hardly a surprise to the people working for the president.
They had always known that Trump wasn’t a Russian stooge.
Far from it, in fact – few recent presidents had opposed Russia more forcefully.
The key message in this blink is: The Mueller report failed to fulfill its purpose of toppling Trump.
Sanders’s press briefings invariably returned to the topic of the Mueller report – a favorite theme of liberal reporters like Jim Acosta.
As she pointed out, this fixation with Russia was a form of shameless hypocrisy.
It wasn’t the Republicans who were in bed with the Russians – it was the Democrats.
Take Bill Clinton.
He was paid half a million dollars to give a speech to a Russian bank, a service for which the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, personally thanked him.
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, oversaw the sale of one-fifth of America’s uranium reserve to a Russian firm.
By a strange coincidence, the firm’s major investors included a roll-call of Clinton Foundation donors.
Compare this record to Trump’s own actions.
During the first years of his administration, Trump imposed harsher sanctions on Russia than ever before and expelled spies posing as diplomats.
He also took a hard line on Russia’s allies.
When the Syrian regime used chemical weapons against civilians, Trump bombed Syrian military targets – something Obama had pledged to do but never did.
In Eastern Europe, Trump supplied Ukraine with lethal weapons and boosted NATO defense spending, two measures designed to halt Russian expansion.
Why should Trump collude with a government he clearly regarded as an enemy?
There was no reason, and when the Mueller report was finally published in March 2019, the official summary clearly stated that it did not establish a conspiracy on the part of the Trump campaign.
As Sanders later put it at a press briefing, the report was “a total and complete exoneration of the President of the United States.
” It was one of Sanders’s proudest moments as press secretary.
In June 2019, she stepped down to spend more time with her family.
Serving the president, she said, had been the “honor of a lifetime.
” Trump hailed her as a warrior, hinting that this wasn’t the last we’d be seeing of Sanders in public life.
Final summary
The key message in these blinks: Sarah Sanders joined the Trump team in 2015 after spending a decade working toward the election of a Republican president.
When Trump entered the White House in 2017, Sanders was appointed as the White House press secretary.
For the next two years, she was the president’s right-hand woman, drafting speeches for Trump, communicating his vision at briefings, and managing his difficult relationship with the press.
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What to read next: A Warning, by Anonymous Sarah Sanders is a declared Trump loyalist.
But, as even she admits, not everyone inside the White House is as committed to the president’s vision as she was.
During her tenure as press secretary, the administration was constantly undermined by leaks from hostile senior officials.
What did they hope to achieve?
There are few better sources to answer this question than Anonymous, an avowed enemy of Donald Trump, and the author of a devastating insider’s account of his administration’s shortcomings.
Want to see what the other side of this story has to say?
Check out our blinks to A Warning.