The biggest worry was that Hillary would get under the boss’s skin and say something to set him off. Television executives expected the largest debate audience ever, over eighty-three million.
We brought a good-size team upstairs to the conference room on the twenty-fifth floor for debate prep. Rudy, Reince, General Michael Flynn, General Keith Kellogg, Stephen Miller, Jason Miller, Kellyanne, Dave, Hope, Governor Christie, Bannon, Jared, Laura Ingraham and her associate, Pat Cipollone, a DC lawyer, all attended. At first, Mr. Trump didn’t want a traditional prep. He didn’t want to memorize a lot of facts or read the research. And he didn’t want a mock setup with someone playing Hillary (for the second and third debate, Governor Christie did play Hillary, but that just happened organically—he was smart and quick with a retort and as informed as the former secretary of state). It was hard enough just keeping Donald Trump in the room for any length of time.
Donald Trump didn’t need to prepare for the debate in the same way other candidates had, he had been preparing his whole life. When we were in Philadelphia for a rally, we went to famous Geno’s for cheesesteaks. There the usual ravenous press pack attacked him on the concession he had made concerning Obama’s birth certificate a few days earlier. For a second, Mr. Trump had the stare, the killer look that always made the team nervous. Instead, he faced the reporters and said, “Jobs. That’s what the country needs.” He then turned to the counter and ordered a sandwich. In Detroit, he withstood a barrage of insults by protesters and stayed on message to deliver an economic speech.
Though the candidate was focused like a laser, there were still moments for laughs. In Detroit, Mr. Trump made a speech in a traditionally black church, then did an interview with Ben Carson in front of the doctor’s childhood home. The video of that interview became an internet sensation. Actually, the candidate and campaign team were already pulling away in our motorcade when the surprising part of the video happened. By the time the motorcade made the quick drive to the airport, the video of the interview had gone viral. Jeremy Diamond, the CNN reporter, asked Dr. Carson what he thought Donald Trump had taken away from his visit to his Detroit neighborhood.
“My luggage!” Carson said, just realizing that he’d left his bags in our SUV. He then ran off camera and after us on live television.
In the weeks leading up to the first debate, Stephen Miller and Jared spent time with the boss crafting solid, nuanced policy speeches—which was all part of the debate prep. Whatever the topic, Jared would be sure to load the speech up with facts, figures, and a few salient points that would play well as sound bites over many weeks. Mr. Trump would then give the speech, and—we kid you not—the material would stay in his head forever. Not a single detail or group of numbers would slip from his memory. Even when they’d made edits to the text, he could always recall both versions of it in seconds.
On Monday night, September 26, a crowd of two thousand packed the Hofstra auditorium. The debate commission saved some seats for the candidate’s families and guests. As promised, Mark Cuban sat in Hillary’s section, his large head blocking the view of those unfortunate students seated behind him. “It’s as big as a beer keg,” Steve Bannon remembered.
When Lester Holt introduced the candidates, the crowd stood, cheered, and shouted. It would become the most-watched presidential debate in history for good reason. The drama of the general election had been building since the conventions. Both of the nominees were “firsts,” Hillary as the first woman, Mr. Trump as the first nonpolitician. Both had fervent followers, and the division between the two camps was stark. In Mr. Trump, Hillary’s camp saw everything they loathed; and in ours, Hillary stood for all that was corrupt about politics.
The Clinton campaign had been pounding the boss with negative ads calling him a racist, a misogynist, unstable, crass, unsympathetic to those less fortunate, a narcissist, a thief, a cheat, a liar, and just about every other bad thing you could say about someone.
We decided to take the high road. The digital team had done analysis that showed our negative ads hurt us as much as they hurt Hillary. These ads might have made undecided voters less likely to vote for her, but they didn’t make any of them want to vote for us. A few weeks before the first debate, we released our first television ad of the general election. Called “The Movement,” the two-minute mini-movie was filled with American flags, soaring buildings, and bright, hopeful faces young and not-so-young alike. Even the New York Times described the ad as having “an energetic and uplifting feel.”
It also happened to be true. The press and cable news had distorted so much of the story of our campaign and our rallies. Even those who conceded the size of the crowds and some who came to our rallies dismissed Mr. Trump’s followers as celebrity hungry, angry, or nuts. They didn’t know the feeling in those stadiums. They didn’t bother to look into the eyes of his supporters. He was offering them a change they had longed for, a voice that was just like theirs—that of the forgotten man and woman.
For Mr. Trump, the debate started with a microphone problem. Though the national television audience couldn’t tell, those of us backstage, in the auditorium, and in the greenroom knew that there was a problem with Mr. Trump’s microphone. Whether the volume on the mic had malfunctioned or something more nefarious had happened, the mic problem was a distraction for the boss. When the sound was soft, he tried to compensate by hunching closer to the microphone. Mr. Trump, a television professional, is a marvel with a microphone. When he wants to make an important point, he grabs the microphone with his right hand and leans in closer to make sure what he is about to say is not missed. He plays it like an instrument. When the sound went bad on the road, which it did now and then, Mr. Trump would yell to George right from the stage, “Don’t pay the son of a bitch.”
Despite the microphone problems at Hofstra, Mr. Trump held his own and had Hillary on the defensive several times. And, in spite of her fixed smile, he was getting to her. As usual, he had some memorable one-liners. For instance, this one that set the cyber world ablaze as it related to hacking: “It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs four hundred pounds, okay? You don’t know who broke into DNC,” he said.
The phrase “four-hundred-pound hacker” immediately became an internet meme. His “Hillary’s got experience, but it’s bad experience,” delighted his followers too.
When the debate got testy, though, the boss found himself on the defensive. Here is the exact transcript:
CLINTON: And one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called this woman “Miss Piggy.” Then he called her “Miss Housekeeping,” because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name.
TRUMP: Where did you find this? Where did you find this?
CLINTON: Her name is Alicia Machado.
TRUMP: Where did you find this?
CLINTON: And she has become a US citizen, and you can bet—
TRUMP: Oh, really?
CLINTON:—she’s going to vote this November.
TRUMP: Okay, good. Let me just tell you—
[Applause]
HOLT: Mr. Trump, could we just take ten seconds and then we ask the final question—
TRUMP: You know, Hillary is hitting me with tremendous commercials. Some of it’s said in entertainment. Some of it’s said—somebody who’s been very vicious to me, Rosie O’Donnell, I said very tough things to her, and I think everybody would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her.
But you want to know the truth? I was going to say something—
HOLT: Please very quickly.
TRUMP:—extremely rough to Hillary, to her family, and I said to myself, “I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. It’s inappropriate. It’s not nice.” But she spent hundreds of millions of dollars on negative ads on me, many of which are absolutely untrue. They’re untrue. And they’re misrepresentations.
And I will tell you this, Lester: It’s no
t nice. And I don’t deserve that.
But it’s certainly not a nice thing that she’s done. It’s hundreds of millions of ads. And the only gratifying thing is, I saw the polls come in today, and with all of that money—
HOLT: We have to move on to the final question.
TRUMP:—$200 million is spent, and I’m either winning or tied, and I’ve spent practically nothing.
The Trump supporters in the room, a hefty number of whom were college students, exploded in applause.
Still, Hillary was leading with her jaw. Perhaps she thought that time had healed old wounds and that the older voter didn’t care about her husband’s documented history of sexual misconduct. Maybe she was banking on the millennials not being familiar with it. Even if she was correct, which she wasn’t, we hadn’t forgotten. The discussion whether or not to bring Bill Clinton’s past into the debate had come up. The boss didn’t want to at first, perhaps because he’d known the Clintons for many years and thought it would be too hurtful. And he’d also heard the voices of those who wanted him to show restraint and look “presidential”—whatever that means.
But Hillary had taken off the gloves with the ads she was running and the Alicia Machado business.
It might have been better had she kept them on. The boss was never one to shy away from a street fight. And Donald Trump is the best counter puncher to ever enter the debate stage.
Though most of the pundits said he lost (they said the same thing in just about every single one of the primary debates too), for Donald Trump, the fight was just beginning.
“Go out and spin,” he said backstage. “Remember Lee Atwater, Reagan lost all of his debates!” Jeff Sessions and Don King were two of the surrogates, and he sent them into the media scrum. Kellyanne went out, as did Jason Miller. But they only set the stage for the big entrance. Having the team spin wasn’t a new thing for the boss. He did the same after the New Hampshire Freedom Summit, at CPAC, and every one of the primary debates. But now we were in the general. This was for keeps.
One of the many traditions Donald Trump shattered during the campaign was the age-old custom of having only a candidate’s surrogates in the spin room after debates. During the primary debates, Mr. Trump looked forward to the lights, boom mics, and crush of reporters afterward. The spin room at Hofstra, however, made the ones during the primaries look like the minor leagues. The room was the size of an airplane hangar, with every inch of it filled with press from all over the world. As the boss walked in, eight minutes after he’d left the debate stage, an electrical charge coursed through the room. Reporters, camera people, and sound people rushed to get near him. The boss was at the top of his game, smiling brightly, complementary to everyone, even Lester Holt, who had badgered him. Melania was at the boss’s side.
He did an interview with Hannity as soon as he entered the room.
“All the polls look good,” he said over and over.
Bannon asked Hope and Dave to ride in the limo with the boss for the ride back to New York City. Trump wanted everyone to know he’d won the debate, so he had Hope Googling poll after poll, some of which he said he’d won, some of which had him losing. When she would find one, like Drudge, which had him winning, she would show it to him. “You see!” he’d yell. “Drudge thinks I won.” He also had Hope call reporter after reporter to spin a win to them.
When the national polls came out that week, they had us slipping badly, especially in Pennsylvania. The press had us in turmoil again, with “sources” from inside the campaign telling of backstabbing and mass exoduses. Other talking heads screamed that we were in a death spiral, yet again.
The week after the first debate wasn’t our best. But we did raise around $18 million in donations, and we were vindicated when the Commission on Presidential Debates conceded that, in fact, the boss’s microphone had been defective, though the statement they issued—“Regarding the first debate, there were issues regarding Donald Trump’s audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall”—wasn’t exactly an apology.
The Alicia Machado issue ran crazy in the press, and the boss didn’t help matters any by raining down a small tweet storm. Kellyanne went on TV and withstood the hosts of The View ganging up on her and a Megyn Kelly assault. It was during this time that the boss’s respect for Kellyanne was forged in steel.
No one on our campaign team was running for the door. We knew this race was far from over. It would take more than just a debate and a few negative headlines to derail us.
It would take something that none of us saw coming.
CHAPTER 13
THE HURRICANE
First of all, I’m going to win. And second, if the Republican Party is going to run away and I do lose, then I will take you all down with me. But I’m not going to lose.
—DONALD J. TRUMP, OCTOBER 7, 2016
BY THURSDAY EVENING on October 6, 2016, a devastating category 4 hurricane had drawn a dead bead on central Florida. Hurricane Matthew had already killed nearly nine hundred people in Haiti alone, and storm-hardened Floridians feared the worst as some two million people evacuated their homes. But on early Friday morning, just before landfall and unlike Hurricane Irma the following year, Matthew turned slightly northward and skirted the Florida coast like a marble following the contour of a bowl. In the coming days, the hurricane would wreak havoc on the coasts of South and North Carolina, causing forty-five deaths, but most meteorologists agreed that Florida and other southern states had dodged a bullet of catastrophic proportions.
Though stories of disrupted early voting and the cancellation of campaign ads and events in Florida filled the press, both inside the Beltway and out, the storm actually had little effect on the campaign. The boss sent his daughter-in-law Lara, who had been with Ivanka on the Trump Women’s Tour, to North Carolina with tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of emergency supplies. The campaign spent the night of the sixth in Sandown, New Hampshire, where the candidate did a town hall event hosted by the radio talk show commentator Howie Carr.
But though we were safe from Matthew, we had a storm brewing of our own making.
If the event in Sandown gave the appearance of a warm-up for the following Sunday’s town hall–style presidential debate in Saint Louis, it was only coincidental. We didn’t want to give the impression that we were worried about how Mr. Trump would perform in that format by holding a warm-up. The truth was, we weren’t worried. The boss was terrific interacting with people. He showed those chops in the commander in chief forum, hosted by NBC’s Matt Lauer, and held on board the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier docked in New York. It was a misconception that Trump didn’t have a personal connection with the crowds that came to hear him speak. The only reason we were in New Hampshire was to keep building the momentum. The boss was at his best when he was on the stump in front of a crowd. Besides, the optics were favorable. While we had our sleeves rolled up talking to the American people, Hillary was again bunkered, this time in Whitehaven, the Clinton mansion in Washington, DC, doing debate prep.
The week following the first debate hadn’t been nearly as bad as pundits predicted. Governor Pence and his team of Nick Ayers and Marc Short prepared diligently for the vice presidential debate against Senator Tim Kaine at Longwood University in Virginia. Mike Pence was magnificent. The first polls after the presidential debate, released on October 4, showed the spread not changing much at all. In fact, they continued to show that Donald Trump’s base was a block of solid granite. By that night in New Hampshire, we were feeling pretty good about where we stood in the campaign, and looking forward to Sunday in St. Louis.
When you start feeling good about things in a campaign is when you really should start worrying.
Dave was in the twenty-fifth-floor conference room in Trump Tower for debate prep when his BlackBerry buzzed. The text was from Hope. A reporter from the Washington Post had contacted her requesting a statement on a story they were about to run. The story concerned a transcript that had surfaced from the tele
vision show Access Hollywood. The reporter said the audio file would follow. The date was October 7. It was early Friday afternoon. Dave slowly slid his BlackBerry over to Bannon, who was sitting to his left at the large conference table. The Breitbart chief raised his eyebrows as he read the text, then motioned with his head for Dave to follow him out of the room. Outside the doors, Jared joined them. Hope had come up to the floor with a hard copy of the transcript.
The conference room has glass doors that lead out to the hallway. The boss could see the huddle of his senior campaign advisers. They had to decide whether or not to interrupt the prep—no small thing—but quickly decided an interruption was warranted. When they walked back in the room, the boss addressed them directly.
“What’s going on?”
When the boss first read the transcript, he wasn’t convinced of its authenticity.
“That doesn’t sound like something I would say,” he said. The reporter had tried several times to send the audio file. When he finally did, the team gathered around the boss as Dave played the video recording on his iPad.
The media’s response to the recording was immediate and forceful. The Washington Post put the story up online at four o’clock that afternoon. Cable TV had it within minutes. Via Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, the story traveled through cyberspace at light speed. It seemed that everyone knew about the Access Hollywood tape before the evening network news broadcasts.
Let Trump Be Trump Page 17