Aides: Big Macs, tirades fueled Trump
Tell-all book revisits unlikely, unorthodox 2016 run for president
Elton John blares so loudly on Donald Trump’s campaign plane that staffers can’t hear themselves think. Press secretary Hope Hicks uses a steamer to press Trump’s pants — while he is still wearing them. Trump screams at his top aides, who are subjected to expletive-filled tirades in which they get their “face ripped off.”
And Trump’s appetite seems to know no bounds when it comes to McDonald’s, with a dinner order consisting of “two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish, and a chocolate malted.”
The scenes are among the most surreal passages in a forthcoming book chronicling Trump’s path to the presidency co-written by Corey Lewandowski, who was fired as Trump’s campaign manager, and David Bossie, another top aide. The book, “Let Trump Be Trump,” paints a portrait of a campaign with an untested candidate and staff rocketing from crisis to crisis, in which Lewandowski and a cast of mostly neophyte political aides learn on the fly and ultimately accept Trump’s propensity to go angrily off message.
“Sooner or later, everybody who works for Donald Trump will see a side of him that makes you wonder why you took a job with him in the first place,” the authors wrote. “His wrath is never intended as any personal offense, but sometimes it can be hard not to take it that way. The mode that he switches into when things aren’t going his way can feel like an all-out assault; it’d break most hardened men and women into little pieces.”
The authors “both had moments where they wanted to parachute off Trump Force One,” but they said they got used to it.
Lewandowski provides a largely admiring portrait of his former boss, saving the skewer for score-settling anecdotes about Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman and rival whom Lewandowski blames for his ouster. The Post obtained an advance copy of the book, which is scheduled for release Tuesday.
In a section of the book written by Lewandowski, Trump is described as flying on his helicopter when he learns that Manafort has said “Trump shouldn’t be on television anymore, that he shouldn’t be on the Sunday shows” and that Manafort should appear instead. Trump was angrier than Lewandowski had ever seen him, ordering the pilot to lower the altitude so he could make a cellphone call.
“Did you say I shouldn’t be on TV on Sunday? I’ll go on TV anytime I g--dam f---ing want and you won’t say another f---ing word about me!” Trump yelled at Manafort, according to Lewandowski. “Tone it down? I wanna turn it up! ... You’re a political pro? Let me tell you something. I’m a pro at life. I’ve been around a time or two. I know guys like you, with your hair and skin ...”
Lewandowski called it “one of the greatest takedowns in the history of the world.”
The aide’s satisfaction at the takedown didn’t last long, however, as he “immediately got a phone call” from Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, “telling me I wasn’t a team player and that I’d thrown Paul under the bus.” Lewandowski wrote that Manafort soon arranged for him to be fired.
But Manafort’s days were numbered as well.