Inside Trump's White House

by Doug Wead

  Paula White’s relationship with Trump was different from other religious figures or charity fundraisers, and she treated the relationship differently from a visit with Michael Jackson or an MVP New York Yankees baseball player.

  “I had a feeling about Donald Trump. Right from the beginning. I felt that God had a special purpose for him. I remember an unusual moment in his office. Now, I can’t tell you what provoked this, but I said, ‘Sir, I don’t want your money. I have enough of my own. I don’t want your fame. I have enough of my own.’

  “Then I said, ‘I want your soul.’

  “At that point I literally got up and walked out of the office. I know that sounds kind of wild. Later, we laughed about it. I think either he thought, ‘This woman is just totally crazy,’ or ‘Boy, she is bold.’ But you can also look back on it and see that even then, many years ago, there was this special feeling about Donald Trump and his destiny. This was not the King of Pop, or a Hall of Fame home run king, but God had a very definitive destiny for this man. It was different from anyone else. And I could feel it.”

  RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT

  Did he ever talk to her back then about running for president?

  “This had come up before, but it was very tenuous. He would say something along the lines of, ‘Paula, pray about the idea that one day, I might think about running for president.’” She laughed. “So, how do you pray about that?

  “Then suddenly, in 2011, he got more certain. He said he wanted me to go into serious prayer about whether or not he should run for president. Keep in mind, he never asked me to pray for something that he wanted for himself, like a business deal or more money or some advantage over someone. It’s true that sometimes he would ask for very specific things for his family and his children, but never for himself. If it was about him, the prayer he wanted was a prayer for the will of God.”

  Trump decided not to run for president in the 2012 election cycle, but he was back again to ask for Paula’s prayers for the 2016 election cycle.

  “On one occasion he had me bring Christian leaders to Trump Tower just to pray. This may have been around 2014. This wasn’t about asking for their support, this was just for a time to pray about the 2016 election. He came in the room once or twice during this. Once he sat with us for about an hour. Again, he didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to sit there with us while we were praying. A pastor or a religious leader won’t sit still that long. They will come for a few minutes of prayer and then leave. In their minds they have more important things to do. But he seemed to find some peace being there.”

  Was he manipulating these Christian leaders? In 1993, soon after his inauguration, Bill Clinton had a succession of private, pastoral counselors fly to the White House, each unknown to the other, praying with him monthly. This was before the Monica Lewinsky scandal. This was before the publicly announced counselors he would later, so famously, engage. I had served as a religious adviser to the Bush family and knew how intricate and sophisticated outreach to various religious groups could be. There was much more to the art of presidential politics than the layman would ever imagine.

  I raised this with Paula White. “Did you ever think he was trying to reach only out to establish a political connection? That his spirituality was bogus?” I asked.

  “Doug, I have been courted by politicians,” she said. “I went with Franklin Graham to Mitt Romney’s house. I sat on a blanket with Barack and Michelle Obama and Oprah at their house. I was invited to events with the Bush family. Smart politicians reach out to all constituencies. And smart religious leaders know when it is happening. Donald Trump’s faith is very real.

  “Later, in the 2015–2016 campaign years, we would have meetings with Christian leaders. It is a way to show respect and to reassure them that they will be included, they will be heard. But this was something else. This was something truly personal and spiritual.”

  Maybe so, but if Trump was so religious, why did he use the F word in his conversations? Why was he so ignorant of biblical language, referring to “Two Corinthians” during an appearance at Liberty University?

  At the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, in 2015, the moderator, Frank Luntz, asked Donald Trump if he had ever asked God for forgivingness. “I’m not sure I have,” Trump answered. “I just go on and try to do a better job from there. If I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right.” Then Trump talked about his Presbyterian communion service, taking the cup of wine and eating the cracker, saying, “I suppose that is a form of asking for forgiveness.”19

  “Well, he is certainly not religious,” Paula White said. “He is no theologian. But he completely understands the concept of redemption, and I know his spiritual life is real and personal and it has been ongoing for years.”

  For his swearing-in ceremony on Inauguration Day, Trump would use a Bible given to him as a child in 1955 by the Presbyterian Sunday School Board. It had been preserved by his grandmother. He would also use Abraham Lincoln’s Bible. When the Washington, DC Museum of the Bible later said they were planning a display, along with bibles belonging to Presidents Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, a staffer at the White House called back for more details. Cary Summers, then president of the museum, said that they would place the Trump Bible just above the others in the showcase. The White House staffers said, “Good call.”20

  “His mother was a very strong Christian woman,” Paula said. “She had a lot of influence on him. He was filled with stories about her. He talked a lot about her. The part about no drugs, no alcohol? I got the impression that it came from his mother. She would pray about her problems and then just give them over to God. She had a lot of influence over his father.”

  His brother Freddie had died early from alcoholism.

  “Sometimes, when he would talk about Freddie, his whole face and voice would change. His demeanor would change. He would talk about his brother with a tenderness. He obviously believed that his brother could have been a great achiever. That was a word he would use often in our discussions. ‘Achiever.’ He would talk about how smart his brother was and how alcohol had ruined things for him and eventually taken his life.”

  “PAULA, YOU’RE PRAYING!”

  In the days following the 2016 election, Paula White was called into the office of President-elect Trump at Trump Tower. There was a crowd. Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, and a host of other staff were in the room, all in animated conversation.

  When Trump spotted Paula, he looked up and shouted everyone else down. “Paula, you’re praying!” he declared. He was talking about the swearing-in ceremony for Inauguration Day. It was not a question. It sounded like the one easy decision Trump could make.

  Paula White knew her friend. She had anticipated that this would be coming. Conservative Southern Baptists would never accept a woman offering the prayer. Mainstream Protestants and evangelicals expected that someone in the Graham family would get the nod, like Franklin Graham or Billy Graham’s up-and-coming grandson Will.

  Some in the liberal national media didn’t want a prayer at all. Others had been specifically attacking Paula White for months. She was an evangelical, they didn’t like that, and in a hilarious bit of contortionism, they had suddenly assumed the mantle of arbitrators of Christian doctrine. Now, in addition to dictating who the American people should vote for in elections, they were now telling them what their religious doctrines should be, if they had to have any. She was a heretic, they said, married three times, a preacher of the “prosperity gospel.”

  Donald Trump, who was a billionaire, who had also been married three times himself, was not impressed by the new theological expertise of the American media.

  When Paula tried to offer a suggestion, he shouted her down. “You’re praying.” That was final.

  “Well, Mr. Trump, sir,” she said gently, “I think I have a truly Trumpian idea for the inaugural prayer.” She then proceeded to lay out the concept that was eventually accepte
d. There would be multiple preachers. Black, white, Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, and Jewish. There would be Franklin Graham too. They would all pray.

  Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus were enthusiastic about the idea. The president-elect smiled. The woman who had been leading teams of praying people for Donald Trump for eighteen years didn’t mind sharing the stage with others. It would be Paula White who insisted that Pastor Jeffress preach the Trump family church service at Saint John’s Episcopal Church the morning of the inauguration.

  Jared Kushner, ever bright and observant, had not missed the fact that his father-in-law had tapped into a significant sociocultural religious bloc of voters, one that the national media despised, but one that no successful politician in America could ignore. On a trip to Liberty University, where they would meet with Jerry Falwell Jr., he pumped Paula White for explanations about how the various theological traditions evolved and what distinguished the denominations and why.

  “SO WHO DO YOU WANT ON THE SUPREME COURT?”

  Punch and cookies in the Roosevelt Room of the White House had been about as far as evangelicals ever seemed to get. Conservative Catholics and Mormons excelled, not because they were media favorites but because they had long been interested in government and had been willing to work inside the process.

  This had been one of the big complaints from evangelicals during the Reagan-Bush years, the lack of representation among federal judges. While the national media promoted “diversity,” it systematically excluded 40 percent of the American population who claimed to be bornagain Christians. In 1988, while working on the George H. W. Bush presidential campaign I was given a study claiming that out of 749 federal judges surveyed, fewer than four identified themselves as bornagain Christians. At the time, political figues routinely listed their religions in official biographies. In this case, four judges were representing almost half of the American population. Evangelicals argued that the absence of judges who understood their faith was leading to misunderstandings in the application of law, particularly to non-profit laws and the chuches’ relationships with the IRS.

  The Constitution makes clear that there should be no religious test for office, which was exactly the point that the evangelicals were making: If there was no test, why were they not getting appointments? Why had they been systematically excluded?

  Before his death, Justice Antonin Scalia, a Catholic, bemoaned the fact that the Supreme Court was so unrepresentative of the American people and wondered if there shouldn’t one day be an evangelical.21 Six justices were Catholic, three were Jewish. Five were from the greater New York City metropolitan area, two from California. Four went to Harvard, three to Yale, and two to Stanford.

  With Trump in office, evangelicals were hopeful that if they had no judges in the pipeline, they would at least be consulted and be part of the process. As chief executive, Trump “issued an order enforcing First Amendment protections for religious liberty.” He restored “the freedom of military chaplains to espouse biblical morality.” He essentially reversed President Obama’s transgender military policy. He revoked the Education Department’s order that public schools allow gender-confused males access to girls’ restrooms and locker rooms. He cracked down on sex trafficking, signing a law allowing states to move against sex advertisement on internet sites that trafficked in children.22

  Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, and the televangelist James Robison said they were experiencing greater access to Trump than any other president. Falwell, one of Trump’s earliest supporters, told the Washington Post, “I think Trump is more one of us. He’s not an elitist. He doesn’t look down his nose at evangelicals and Christians and conservatives. I’m very shocked by how accessible he is to so many. He answers his cellphone any time of the day or night.”23

  In February 2017, President Donald Trump convened a meeting of national leaders to discuss his upcoming appointment to the Supreme Court. Representatives from every group of people, of all sexual orientations and racial backgrounds, were invited into the White House. For the first time in years, evangelicals were not excluded.24 Sitting to the president’s right at one of the most important meetings was Paula White. Members of the national media were hysterical. Trump didn’t seem to care.

  NOTES

  1. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/10/trump-legacy-conservative-judges-district-courts

  2. https://www.elitedaily.com/p/trumps-federal-court-judge-appointments-are-reshaping-the-us-judicial-system-in-a-big-way-15557091

  3. https://www.elitedaily.com/p/trumps-federal-court-judge-appointments-are-reshaping-the-us-judicial-system-in-a-big-way-15557091

  4. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-may-04-na-souter4-story.html

  5. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-nomination-stop-stalling-and-vote/

  6. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/new-questions-raised-about-avenatti-claims-regarding-kavanaugh-n924596

  7. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/new-questions-raised-about-avenatti-claims-regarding-kavanaugh-n924596

  8. https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/25/michael-avenatti-indicted/

  9. https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/25/michael-avenatti-indicted/

  10. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/

  11. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1727387/

  12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGGACRwYDo8

  13. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/22/why-did-obama-win-more-white-evangelical-votes-than-clinton-he-asked-for-them/

  14. Unless otherwise indicated all quotes attributed to Paula White in this chapter come from conversations, emails, and interviews with the author conducted in 2019.

  15. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1993/12/26/the-rev-norman-vincent-peale-positive-thinking-author-dies/9a5be738-2e33-4c8c-b046-b0280cad421a/

  16. Sayne Lee and Phillip Luke Sinitiere, Holy Mavericks: Evangelical Innovators and the Spiritual Marketplace (New York: NYU Press, 2009), 110.

  17. https://pagesix.com/2010/03/06/kid-rocks-offering-to-pastor/

  18. Quotations attributed to Donald Trump in this chapter were made to the author by Paula White.

  19. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-on-god-i-dont-like-to-have-to-ask-for-forgiveness-2016-1

  20. This story was told to the author by Cary Summers, the president of the Museum of the Bible.

  21. https://www.charismanews.com/politics/55309-scalia-s-advice-on-who-should-replace-him-on-the-supreme-court-bench

  22. Robert Knight, “Giving Trump’s Accomplishments Their Due,” Washington Times, May 6, 2019, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/may/6/giving-trumps-accomplishments-their-due/

  23. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/02/01/thrilled-with-trumps-supreme-court-pick-heres-what-evangelicals-want-next/

  24. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4183276/Preacher-branded-heretic-takes-place-Trump-s-side.html

  20

  TIFFANY’S TALE

  “No matter the ridicule, you must stay true to what you believe is in the best interest of everyone.”

  —TIFFANY TRUMP1

  As I reached the end of my work, I knew that my door into the Trump family would soon be closing. There was still some unfinished business, and I felt a greater urgency to get it done. I wanted to start a discussion within the family about the legacy of President Donald Trump and his administration and, perhaps just as important, a discussion about the legacy of the Trump family. When I learned that Tiffany Trump would be willing to answer questions, it seemed like a perfect moment. She had spent her childhood in California, raised separately from the others. She would have a unique perspective on the Trumps of New York and on the story of her father’s rise to the presidency.

  Tiffany Trump was famous for never giving interviews. That is never as in “never.” She was the Garbo of the Trump children. The fir
st lady, Melania Trump, had given more interviews than Tiffany. If she would agree to answer my questions, it would represent her first public conversation since her father had been elected president.

  Her discretion had not protected her. It had created a vacuum. As a result, she was the subject of constant fake stories. Journalists roamed freely, knowing that she would not venture out to correct them. According to one July 2019 headline, “Tiffany Trump Just Got Snubbed by Her Dad in a Big Way.”2 It was a story alleging that the president didn’t want her help in the 2020 political reelection campaign. It was false. The fact was that working day to day on the campaign would mean giving up law school, something she didn’t want to do. Her father totally agreed and said he would welcome her help on free weekends and when she was available for special rallies.

  Other stories suggested that she didn’t like her father and didn’t want to be involved in his work. The stories alleged that she shunned her father’s policies. These too were false. She is proud of her father. Their love for each other is strong.

  In one of her last interviews, conducted the night before the 2016 election, Tiffany told Sean Hannity of Fox News, “It’s hard but we know who our father is, and I think no tabloid can spread anything that will make us doubt that. We know the truth.”3

  Almost all the stories about Tiffany were accounts based on anonymous sources, claiming to be coming from her close friends. Meanwhile, inside the Trump family the bond was strong. The outside hostility only made it stronger. The two sisters, Ivanka and Tiffany, are especially close. Ivanka has often reached out a hand to her younger sister. Thanks to Ivanka, Tiffany had done modeling. She had made a connection at Vogue. Eric Trump is her buddy. And touchingly, as I would learn, Tiffany adores her little brother, Barron.