The Briefing

by Sean Spicer

  Some senior staffers naively assumed that if there were press leaks, they must be coming from one of the forty people working in the press office. I’d occasionally ask reporters who was leaking to them, and they’d reply, “It’s not your team.” Meanwhile, pressure kept coming from above to plug the leaks. And there were a few times when I wondered about internal sources when I saw something embargoed or held by my office leak out, especially after leaks from a planning meeting with some of my staffers.

  My communications staff was made of two distinct groups. One group was comprised of people I had worked with at the RNC, sometimes for years. The other group included Trump “loyalists” who had come from the campaign, though some of them had only worked there for a short while. There was some friction between the two groups. And where there is friction, there is the potential for someone to get even by leaking against a colleague.

  As I tried to track leaks within my own staff, I came to learn something about the art of it. The smart leakers cover their tracks with burner phones. The less smart ones simply download data-driven voice apps that allow them to make calls from their smartphone, text, and then delete all evidence. The latter did not realize that when they did this, their whole email contact list received a notice about the downloaded app, including me.

  After an early morning meeting with my team, I discovered that someone had leaked something. So, I worked with the Office of White House Counsel to plan an approach. I gathered twenty of the men and women who worked for me and gave them an impromptu pep talk about teamwork and trust.

  “We’ve got to be able to work together,” I said. “We’ve got to be able to trust each other.”

  So, I asked them to allow me or one of my deputies to look at their phones, whatever they were carrying on them, from personal phones to the iPhones issued by the White House. We looked for Confide, WhatsApp, Signal, and other messaging apps that could potentially violate the Presidential Records Act.10

  I should have known what would happen next. My effort to contain the leaks got leaked to the press. Within days, stories about me confiscating phones and snooping on employees were reported by Politico and became talk-fodder for cable news. I realized with a sinking feeling what would happen next.

  Sure enough, the president called me in to explain why I had done this.

  “Sean,” he said, “what were you thinking?”

  I tried to explain, but the president’s stern expression of disapproval showed me he didn’t buy it. He reprimanded me, not raising his voice but speaking like a disappointed parent.

  I can only say in my defense that I was under relentless pressure to find leakers. I am not given to self-pity, but my team and I worked tirelessly to support the president’s message. So, it was especially upsetting to read the numerous, anonymous leaks attacking our performance and undermining our efforts. I sometimes felt like a scuba diver, abandoned in the middle of the ocean, treading water. Of all my experiences with the president, that one was the worst.

  As I struggled to keep my equilibrium, accusations of Russian meddling in the presidential election began to spill into discussions of domestic and foreign policy, especially into what the White House press corps loved to focus on—supposed scandal.

  On February 14, 2017, the New York Times ran a front-page story:

  WASHINGTON — Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.11

  I could, of course, name three of these current/former officials in my sleep. The implication was twofold: the Trump campaign was a Russian front organization and was working hand in glove with Russian intelligence to hack the Democratic National Committee and demoralize Clinton supporters with fake news. This ignited media speculation that the president was somehow indebted to Russia.

  I knew that Donald Trump—the real Donald Trump—believed America’s current state of affairs with Russia was an aberration, that we have many of the same foreign policy concerns, and that our countries should be natural allies against terrorism and the ISIS caliphate.

  But when Vladimir Putin has acted against the world order, Trump has proven to be as tough as he needs to be. He was visibly proud of his ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who faced the UN Security Council and strongly denounced the Russian occupation of Crimea. President Trump has twice ordered air strikes against Russia’s ally Syria when the Syrians used chemical weapons against their own people. And he expelled sixty, Russian diplomat-spies after a Russian-linked nerve-gas attack on a former Russian agent and his daughter in England.

  The deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, informed Reince that the New York Times story was “a bunch of bull.” To knock down this story, which cited four unnamed current and former intelligence officials, I needed more than McCabe’s assurance. So, I asked CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chair Richard Burr to talk with reporters from the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

  I was asked about this in my February 27 press conference.

  Q: Sean, there’s a report this morning that you reached out directly to CIA Director Pompeo. Did you directly contact Director Pompeo and ask him to knock down the New York Times story on the Russia connection?

  SPICER: . . . The FBI deputy director was at a meeting here at the White House that morning. After the meeting concluded, he asked the chief of staff to stand back a second; he wanted to tell him that the report in the New York Times was “BS.” For viewers at home, I think you can pretty much figure what that means, but I’ll leave it at that . . . .

  Q: You don’t think there’s something strange about—something odd about the White House press secretary getting the CIA director on the phone to knock down a story about an investigation?

  SPICER: . . . Now, remember, this all started with the FBI coming to us, bringing to our attention, saying that the story in the Times was not accurate—in fact, it was BS—and all we did was simply say, that’s great, could you tell other reporters the same thing you’re telling us? And I would think that other reporters, yourself included, would think that that would be a helpful thing to get the story straight.

  You would think.

  But many in the media acted as if bringing the most authoritative people into the discussion was an imposition, not a benefit; they did not appreciate it when high-ranking, well-informed officials defended the administration rather than leak against it.

  The never-ending, always-changing Russia narrative began to reshape the administration. General H. R. McMaster was widely praised as a strong candidate to replace General Flynn as national security advisor. Unlike Flynn—a retired, three-star general—McMaster was an active-duty, three-star general who wore his uniform on alternating days. I found McMaster to be affable, kind, and personable but also—I say this as a Navy man—very Army.

  That meant General McMaster described every decision-making process the Army way—with bulleted and sub-bulleted courses of action, each point lined up with its pros and cons. Many previous commanders in chief would have eaten that up. However, the linear McMaster style, accentuated with a PhD vocabulary, was not Donald Trump’s style. He considers it a waste of time and doesn’t want to discuss five different options and their corresponding pros and cons. He wants his advisers to come to him with their best assessments of what should be done and to defend, or modify if necessary, their advice after he questions them.

  I knew from the outset that General McMaster, great man that he is, was likely not going to last long in that post.

  Meanwhile, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was almost pulled into the same quicksand that had engulfed General Flynn. As a senator, Sessions had been a member of the Armed Services Committee. In his confirmation testimony before his then fellow senators, Sessions had answered a question from then Senator A
l Franken affirming that he had not, as an adviser and supporter of the Trump campaign, had conversations with Russian officials about the 2016 election. Sessions had not mentioned that he had, as a United States senator, been visited by the Russian ambassador in his office with his staff present. The Democrats and the media were on a mad chase to convict Sessions of perjury, but as Sessions’s spokeswoman pointed out:

  There was absolutely nothing misleading about his answer. He was asked during the hearing about communications between Russia and the Trump campaign—not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee. Last year, the Senator had over 25 conversations with foreign ambassadors as a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, including the British, Korean, Japanese, Polish, Indian, Chinese, Canadian, Australian, German and Russian ambassadors.

  On March 2, 2017, I took questions from the press about Sessions while aboard Air Force One.

  MR. SPICER: I know the Attorney General is going to speak very shortly, so let’s just—I’ll leave it at that. But I think the president made his views clear with you guys just a short time ago.

  Q: He doesn’t have any concerns about whether he should have given a more clear response at the time?

  MR. SPICER: Well, obviously—I mean, I’ll let the Attorney General speak for himself. But I think that clearly if you listen to what he was responding to, he’s clearly referring to his role as a campaign surrogate. That’s what the question was about. And I think there’s no—

  Q: So, in that role as a campaign surrogate, does that mean, like, if he was asked at a campaign rally, he’s a campaign surrogate? If he’s at his office, he’s a senator? Like, where does one role begin and the other one stop?

  MR. SPICER: We’re moments away from him addressing this. And it was really silly for me to try to talk about what he may or may not think. But I think most people—almost a clear—I don’t think there’s very few other ways to read it when you look at the transcript and see the back and forth that he was clearly referring to himself. He was very—he was clear in referring to himself as a campaign surrogate and believed that that’s what the question was about. But I will let—I mean, we’re literally moments away from him addressing this, and I think the president made his view clear.

  Q: Sean, I had a big question of what he told the Senate. Is the White House annoyed that he wasn’t completely forthcoming with you guys?

  MR. SPICER: Forthcoming about what? I mean, he’s a United States—

  Q: (Inaudible) with the Russian ambassador.

  MR. SPICER: Wait, hold on, he’s a United States senator who speaks to countless—I mean, that’s—I mean, he was a campaign surrogate and gave the candidate at that time some ideas and advice in very important—he had the value— the president values his opinion tremendously, as you can tell by the fact that he wanted him in his cabinet . . . I’m going to let the Attorney General speak for himself, but the bottom line is, is that for six months now we’ve heard the same thing over and over again, unnamed sources talking about nebulous, unnamed things, and keep having to say the same thing. At some point, you have to ask yourself where the “there” is.

  In the end, Sessions stared down the effort by Democrats to portray him as a perjurer. In fact, it was Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri who inadvertently came to the attorney general’s rescue with a perfect illustration of the frailty of human memory. She tweeted, “I’ve been on the Armed Service Com[mittee] for 10 years. No call or meeting w/Russian ambassador. Ever. Ambassadors call members of Foreign Rel[ations] Com[mittee].”

  Unfortunately for her and the Democrats’ attempt to smear Sessions, this accusatory tweet had been written without reference to the senator’s own Twitter feed. In 2013, she had tweeted, “Off to meeting w/Russian Ambassador. Upset about the arbitrary/cruel decision to end all US adoptions, even those in process.” In 2015, she had tweeted, “Today calls with British, Russian, and German Ambassadors re: Iran deal.”

  The truth is that Washington officials, with their perjury traps and gotcha questions, take far too little stock of the deficiencies of human memory. It’s easy to question motives, assume someone is lying, or try hiding something nefarious, especially when you don’t like a politician or his policies, even when the reality is much more innocent and straightforward.

  To pacify his critics, the attorney general recused himself from any investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election. In May, in the face of a rising chorus of Democratic accusations of alleged “collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russians, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as the special counsel in charge of investigating possible ties between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.

  President Trump was quick to realize the magnitude of this threat, the origin of which he blamed on Jeff Sessions.

  “Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself,” President Trump told the New York Times, “which frankly I think is very unfair to the president. How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, ‘Thanks, Jeff, but I’m not going to take you.’ ”12

  The die was cast. The Trump administration was condemned to invest a lot of energy and attention into the investigation, distracting it from policymaking. Given the legal complexities and murky nature of the subject, I began to refer Russia questions to outside attorneys.

  Among the press’s many observations about the president is the criticism of his evangelical supporters for backing a man the press believes is lacking in Christian virtues. I think the press is wrong about that.

  Once, during the transition, I attended a dinner in Bedminster, New Jersey, with the president-elect, the vice president-elect, and Reince Priebus.

  “Let’s all go to church tomorrow,” Donald Trump declared around 10:00 p.m. It would be an OTR (an unscheduled, off-the-record movement) to a small Presbyterian church a mile or two away.

  Donald Trump looked to Mike Pence, an evangelical, and Reince, who both nodded in the affirmative.

  All eyes were on me.

  “Thank you for the kind offer, Mr. President-elect, but I am going to Mass tomorrow.”

  “It’s all church, so let’s go together,” the president-elect said.

  Mike Pence, who had been raised Catholic, intervened to explain that Catholics go to Mass, not church. I didn’t mind going to a Protestant service, but I didn’t want to miss Sunday Mass—something I tried not to miss any week during the campaign or while I was at the White House.

  Then I realized something—the president-elect was a little crestfallen. He had seen our whole excursion as a brotherly moment, a sharing of the church experience. It made me feel bad to say no to him.

  Donald Trump may not quote scripture like an evangelical, but I know he is a man of Christian instincts and feeling. I saw this in his desire to share communion with me. I saw it in the way he interacted with the children of the late Navy SEAL William Ryan Owens. You see it in his compassion for the victims of opioid addiction. You see it in his support of victims of crime. It influences his economic policy, his concern for blue-collar workers, and his foreign policy—like when he responded forcibly to Syrian, chemical-weapons attacks on civilians.

  Many people don’t see—or want to see—that side of him, but I still see it from time to time when I visit the White House or see the president on television interacting with people from around the country.

  That’s the Donald Trump I know.

  CHAPTER NINE

  MEMORABLE MOMENTS, MEMES, AND MISTAKES

  Since leaving the White House, I am often asked what I remember most about the experience. I put my memories into three categories: moments, memes, and mistakes.

  There are moments I will cherish forever: events where I saw history being made and encounters with luminaries and officials I was honored to meet. Then there are the memes and mistakes—those times when I beca
me a story, sometimes as a result of my own actions and sometimes as a result of the media creating a meme.

  On April 6, 2017, President Trump flew to his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, to hold his first high-stakes summit meeting with a foreign counterpart, Xi Jinping, the most powerful leader of the People’s Republic of China since Mao Zedong.

  While the two leaders began to get to know one another that afternoon, I strolled through the Spanish-Moorish archways and sumptuous rooms of the great estate, which was built by Marjorie Merriweather Post in the 1920s. I walked out to the pool through an underground walkway that goes under the road seperating the estate from the beachfront. I stopped and stared at the Atlantic Ocean, wishing for an instant that I could jump in and relax. But there was no time to for that. I turned around, went inside, and got back to work.

  Earlier that day in the White House and on Air Force One’s television screens, President Trump had seen, and been deeply affected by, the heart-wrenching images of dying children, victims of a poison-gas attack launched by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad against the city of Khan Sheikhoun. In terms of foreign policy, the attack was interpreted as a gesture of defiance against the United States and a test of the new administration. The president acknowledged that, but he viewed it even more as an outrage against human rights and innocent children.

  On the flight down to Florida, reporters were inquiring about rumored retaliatory strikes. As the day wore on in Florida, I grew convinced that something was about to happen. That evening, at Mar-a-Lago, I was summoned to a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF)—an enclosed area where classified information can be freely discussed without fear of eavesdropping, electronic or otherwise. Surrounding the president were Reince, Lieutenant General McMaster, Deputy National Security Advisor Dina Powell, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Chief Economic Advisor Gary Cohn, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Joe Hagin, National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, and military aide Major Wes Spurlock.