Speaking for Myself

by Sarah Huckabee Sanders

  I hadn’t talked to anyone in the building about my decision. I wanted the first person outside my family to hear I was leaving to be the person who had hired me and given me this opportunity in the first place. I got up earlier than normal, worked out at home, and got my kids ready for school. Bryan and I sat down at our kitchen table with Scarlett, Huck, and George, and I said, “Mommy has some news. I’m going to tell the president today I’m leaving the White House and we’re moving home to Arkansas.” Our kids erupted in cheers, and at that moment I knew I was doing the right thing. I got in the car and headed to the office. I hadn’t been in the car more than a minute or two when my phone rang and the White House operator asked if I was available for a call from the president. He and I talked for a few minutes about a story he had read and wanted my input on. As we were wrapping up I knew this was my moment.

  “Sir, can I come over this morning to the residence to talk to you?”

  He paused.

  “No, you can’t. I can hear it in your voice and I don’t like it. Not my Sarah. You’re going to leave me in the dust.”

  “Not in the dust, sir. I just want to talk to you.”

  He said he’d come down to the Oval Office early instead. I asked that it be in private and he said, “Of course. I don’t trust any of these a—— holes either.”

  Not long after, I got a call from Madeleine. “The president would like to see you.”

  I had made the short walk from my office down the hall to the Oval Office thousands of times, but this one was the hardest. I walked into the back dining room and closed the door behind me. The president was seated in his spot at the head of the table. He looked at me, shook his head, and said, “Lay it on me.”

  I sat down and burst into tears. To my surprise, the president immediately got up and hurried out of the room. I was left there alone, wondering what on earth he was doing. The president quickly returned with a box of Kleenex in his hand and pulled me in for a hug.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said.

  I explained to him how much I loved my job and how thankful I was to him.

  “It’s time for me to be a better wife and a better mom, and go home to Arkansas.”

  “You are going to run for governor, aren’t you?”

  I laughed.

  “I’m not sure yet, but I’m definitely thinking about it and I have been getting more and more encouragement to do it thanks to all your ‘Madam Governor’ talk.”

  “You have nothing to worry about,” he said. “You’ll win and you’ll be great. You have to do it. I will come in and endorse you right away. I am going to tweet about it now. You need to get out there early and let people know.”

  “The election isn’t for a few more years, sir. Let’s get you reelected first.”

  “You need to let people know now. Just trust me, Sarah. After all, am I president or what?”

  Mick Mulvaney walked in and I told him the news. He was surprised and said, “Well, that changes things. I was hoping you were going to take on comms, too. I guess I need to come up with plan B.” A few minutes later Scavino walked in and I told him. He was supportive but sad I was leaving. We had become close friends as two of the longest-serving aides to the president going back to his campaign. The president said he was ready to tweet something out. I asked him to wait because I needed to tell some more people in the building first.

  I walked back to my office and shared the news with the press and communications staff, along with a few senior White House officials, including Walsh, Kudlow, and Ivanka. There were lots of hugs and tears. I was emotionally drained as I walked back to the Oval to check in with the president and Scavino and let him know it was okay to announce it now.

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “You could stay.…”

  “I am sure,” I said, and the president hit Send on the tweet.

  “After three and a half years, our wonderful Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be leaving the White House at the end of the month and going home to the Great State of Arkansas.… She is a very special person with extraordinary talents, who has done an incredible job! I hope she decides to run for governor of Arkansas—she would be fantastic. Sarah, thank you for a job well done!”

  We stood there and the president turned on the TV. “Watch this,” he said. “I bet we set a new record. Wait for it, wait for it—there it is!” His tweet about me was on Fox News as a breaking news alert. “I think you did it! That was only like twenty seconds from tweet to screen! That’s big! You’re famous, Sarah!”

  “Come with me,” said the president. We walked down the colonnade together, with Jared and Ivanka behind us, to the East Room, where hundreds of people were gathered together for an event on criminal justice reform, which had been championed by Jared. Few expected it to get through Congress, but Jared almost singlehandedly made it happen. We went into the green room, where Kim Kardashian, who had partnered with the administration to promote the Second Chance Act, was waiting. The press noticed me and started taking photos of me standing against the back wall. About halfway into his remarks the president invited me to join him, and the crowd gave me a standing ovation as I walked onstage.

  “And I thought maybe I’d just take a moment,” said the president. “So, at the White House—and been with me now three and a half years, before I won, before the election—is a person, a friend, a woman—a great, great magnificent person, actually—named Sarah Huckabee Sanders. And she’s very popular. She’s very popular.

  “And—and she’s done an incredible job. We’ve been through a lot together, and she’s tough but she’s good. You know, you also have tough and bad, right? She’s tough and she’s good. She’s great. And she’s going to be leaving the service of her country, and she is going to be going—I guess you could say private sector, but I hope she’s going to—she comes from a great state, Arkansas. That was a state I won by a lot, so I like it, right? But we love Arkansas, and she’s going to be going back to Arkansas with her great family—her husband, who’s a fantastic guy, and her family.

  “And I don’t know, folks, if we can get her to run for the governor of Arkansas, I think she’ll do very well. And I’m trying to get her to do that.

  “But I just saw her in the room and I really wanted to call her up. She’s a special person, a very, very fine woman. She has been so great. She has such heart. She’s strong but with great, great heart. And I want to thank you for an outstanding job.

  “Say a couple words.…”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much. I’ll try not to get emotional because I know that crying can make us look weak sometimes, right?”

  The crowd laughed.

  “This has been the honor of a lifetime, the opportunity of a lifetime. I couldn’t be prouder to have had the opportunity to serve my country and particularly to work for this president. He has accomplished so much in these two and a half years, and it’s truly been something I will treasure forever. It’s one of the greatest jobs I could ever have. I’ve loved every minute. Even the hard minutes, I have loved it.

  “I love the president. I love the team that I’ve had the opportunity to work for. The president is surrounded by some of the most incredible and most talented people you could ever imagine. And it’s truly the most special experience.

  “The only one I can think of that might top it just a little bit is the fact that I’m a mom. I have three amazing kids, and I’m going to spend a little more time with them.

  “And, in the meantime, I’m going to continue to be one of the most outspoken and loyal supporters of the president and his agenda. And I know he’s going to have an incredible six more years and get a whole lot more done, like what we’re here to celebrate today.

  “And I don’t want to take away from that. So I certainly want to get back to the tremendous thing that the people behind me have done.

  “And thank you so much, Mr. President. It’s truly an honor.”

  “Thank you, Sarah. Thank you very much.
Great. Great person. Great person. Thank you, Sarah. Great.

  “She’s a warrior. You guys know what warriors are, right? Yeah? You’re warriors. Huh? We’re all warriors. We have no choice. We have to be warriors in this world. But she is a warrior.”

  12

  Be the Somebodies

  For more than two years I had been in President Trump’s inner circle in the White House. I didn’t just love my job, I loved the president and most of the people I worked with. As White House press secretary I had the opportunity to develop good relationships not only with the president and senior White House staff but also with the president’s family, his cabinet, campaign staff, and members of Congress. Walking away from so many friends was one of the hardest parts about leaving, so when more than two hundred people showed up at my going-away party it was a real affirmation. Many departures from the Trump administration weren’t so positive, much less given a celebratory send-off. It was meaningful to me that so many of my friends and colleagues had turned out. Ivanka and Jared, along with a few others, including Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Deputy Chief of Staff Chris Liddell and his wife, Renee, and Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp and her husband, Matt, cohosted the party at the Trump Hotel in one of the private rooms. Friends and former colleagues from White House press and comms including Sean Spicer, Bill Shine, Raj Shah, Lindsay Walters, Jessica Ditto, Hogan Gidley, Judd Deere, Julia Hahn, Alyssa Farah, Tony Sayegh, and Stephanie Grisham were there, along with current senior staff Larry Kudlow, Stephen Miller, Pat Cipollone, Marc Short, Derek Lyons, Julie Radford, and Kellyanne Conway, among others. Cabinet secretaries including Rick Perry, Linda McMahon, Wilbur Ross, Sonny Perdue, Alex Azar, Elaine Chao, Ben Carson, and Robert Wilkie also came, as did House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and US senator John Boozman, whose first campaign I had managed in Arkansas. Future White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany joined us as well, as did Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, who came down from New York. It was an honor and quite the surprise when President Trump walked in, offered a toast, and as usual stole the show.

  Just a few days later the president and his team were scheduled to leave for Osaka, Japan, for the G20. I went to the Oval just before the president’s departure to say good-bye one last time. The vice president was there, too. I said thank you to the president and gave him a hug. As the president was walking out the door to the South Lawn to board Marine One, he said, “It’s not too late. You can still come with us!” But we both knew it was too late. The news had been announced, my replacement chosen, and my kids were too excited to have their mom back to change my mind now. I stood in the door to the Oval as I watched him walk away. The walk back to my office was lonelier than any I had made before. I had been told that when the president leaves the country the West Wing is eerily quiet, but this was the first time I had experienced it myself. I went to my office and looked around, trying to soak it all in just one last time. Thinking about the moments we had fought, laughed, cried, hugged, and cheered together, and hoping I’d never forget any of it.

  I hadn’t packed up my office yet. I had planned to do some that afternoon and the rest the next day—my last. I enlisted my friend Lindsay Walters, my very type A deputy who had left only a couple months before I did, to come back and help me pack everything from the place I had spent more time over the last two and a half years in than any other, including my home in Arlington. It was a good thing I had Lindsay because without her I am pretty sure some of my stuff would have never made it back to Arkansas. My friends Sarah Flaherty, Jessica Ditto, and Julie Radford came to help as well. Julie and her husband, Wynn, had become close friends during my time in the administration. Later, Bryan arrived to load everything into our GMC Yukon for the drive home.

  It was already summer and the kids were out of school but Heather and Michael Giroux, our pastors at the church we attended in Washington, DC, had volunteered to watch them. We had fallen in love with Citizen Heights church and gotten close to Michael and Heather over many long dinners and were very sad to leave them and the church behind. We were glad to know our kids were in good hands as they had four boys of their own and had seen it all. As we finished up, my friends left, and it was just Bryan and me in my empty office. I sat at my desk and followed the tradition of leaving a note behind for my successor, Stephanie Grisham. I tried to sum up on a notecard a job that had changed my life and what I learned that might be helpful to her. In addition to the letter, I left her a copy of Jesus Calling, the daily devotional book that had brought me peace and given me confidence to face the challenges of the job every day. I tucked it in the top drawer where Spicer had left a note and a challenge coin for me. I also wrote a note to Hogan, who had been my principal deputy for about a year and was more like family than a colleague. We had first met when we worked for my dad during his reelection campaign for governor back in 2002 and had worked together on many campaigns since, but nothing had made us closer than our time in the White House. I knew it would be very different for him with me gone and I wanted him to know how much I valued his friendship. I had written a similar note to Raj when he left after serving as my first principal deputy. Raj and Hogan had been there to lead the team when I couldn’t, tell me things no one else wanted to, or let me yell at them in frustration and still be there when things calmed down. I dropped the note on Hogan’s desk, turned off the lights, and took a final look around my office. I closed the door and walked down the same stairs to the West Executive Exit that I had walked in almost exactly two and a half years ago to start this wild adventure. Bryan and I got in the car and rolled the windows down. I waved to the Secret Service agents at the gate, and we drove out. As it closed behind us it felt like more than just a gate closing but the end of one of the most consequential times in our lives.

  We didn’t know what was next. I didn’t have a job lined up or a plan other than returning home to Arkansas with my family. We wasted no time leaving Washington, and were on the road the next morning, never looking back. We had packed only what clothes and other essentials we would need for the next few weeks and to this day our kids haven’t been back to Washington. Before going home to Arkansas, we stopped at my parents’ house in Florida where we spent a few weeks decompressing in the sunshine before the kids started school. It was quite the transition to go from the center of the political universe in the West Wing to sitting on the beach with my family. I didn’t even know how tired my mind and body were until I slowed down. I had been running on pure adrenaline for years, and it was like being hit by a semitruck. I went from every major reporter in the country and people at the highest levels of government, including the leader of the Free World, needing me and calling me every day to ordering school supplies and uniforms and decorating our new home. It was a shock to the system but every time I sat around the dinner table with my family or tucked my kids into bed and was present in the moment with them—not worried about rushing off to deal with the next crisis—I knew I was where I needed to be.

  After settling into our new home in Little Rock and getting our kids enrolled in their new school, I signed contracts to be a Fox News contributor and with a speaker’s bureau, and was appointed by President Trump to the Fulbright Board, established by the late US senator J. William Fulbright, from my home state of Arkansas. I started doing more campaign events with President Trump and Vice President Pence around the country and for Republican candidates and organizations in Arkansas. I also started writing this book.

  That fall I was in Louisiana for an alligator hunt hosted by Jeff Landry, the state’s attorney general. After I battled and killed my first-ever alligator, I was sitting around the campfire listening to my friend and fellow Arkansan Tracey Lawrence lead us in singing “Paint Me a Birmingham” when I saw a familiar number pop up on the screen of my phone. I walked to my cabin and answered.

  “White House Operator, are you available for a call from the president?”

  “Yes,
thank you,” I said.

  “My Sarah! Where are you? What are you doing? Are you governor yet?”

  “Not yet, sir. I am actually writing a book. I think you will like it. You have been falsely attacked and misrepresented for too long and it’s time for America to know the real story.”

  “Can’t wait. I’m sure it will be great,” said the president.

  * * *

  Just a few weeks later the Democrats began their push to impeach President Trump. The Democrats’ Russia witch hunt had failed, so they needed to manufacture a new scandal to take down the president. The Trump administration had asked Ukraine to investigate corruption, including why Joe Biden’s son was paid millions of dollars to serve on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma despite having no relevant experience to do so. Hunter Biden had been given the board seat and millions in compensation because his dad was the vice president and in charge of Ukraine policy for the Obama administration. And to make matters worse, Vice President Biden had called for the resignation of a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma, a clear conflict of interest. The US government was spending hundreds of millions of dollars on aid to Ukraine, and President Trump had every right to demand transparency and accountability from the Ukrainian government.

  The Democrats and their liberal allies in the media didn’t see it that way, but I couldn’t believe they would be so stupid to make the same mistake again. The Russia witch hunt had totally backfired on them, and I was convinced the Ukraine witch hunt would as well. At the time I said it would “go down as one of the dumbest and most embarrassing political moves of all time—so bad it should be reported as an in-kind contribution to President Trump’s 2020 reelect,” and I was right.