Let Trump Be Trump

by Corey R. Lewandowski

  Quickly, Hope and Jason put together and released a statement. Calling Mr. Trump’s off-color remarks “Locker room talk,” we kept on the offensive by saying that Bill Clinton had said far worse to the boss on the golf course and ended it with “I apologize if anyone was offended.”

  CNN’s president, Jeff Zucker, called Corey and told him he wanted him on TV to react to the tape. Corey called Jerry Falwell Jr. to solicit his advice on what he should say. Jerry told Corey to remind America what his daddy had said, which was that we weren’t voting for a Sunday school teacher, we were voting for the president of the United States. After speaking with Jerry, Corey did a phone interview with CNN and used the words Jerry recommended to defend Mr. Trump.

  Tensions were as high as they were at any point during the campaign.

  It was wishful thinking on our part to think the statement would be sufficient to stem a tide that was about to overwhelm our campaign.

  We spent about an hour in intensive group therapy trying to come up with a media strategy. It wasn’t easy. We knew we had to get something out to the press.

  The boss knew that the tape was going to hurt us. But he kept a 35,000-foot view of the situation and saw it in the context of a political campaign. He didn’t focus on what he’d said. He saw the release of the tape as a political maneuver by the competition. And you couldn’t blame him. In the weeks leading up to October 7, the Clinton campaign had pounded us with ads that presented Mr. Trump as antiwoman. In hindsight, the buildup seemed almost like a drumroll to the big crescendo of the Access Hollywood tape’s release. We knew the other camp certainly wouldn’t be above doing something like that, or worse. They had paid over $225,000 for the Alicia Machado information a full year before Mrs. Clinton sprung it on the boss at the first debate. Also, just two days before the first general election debate, someone anonymously sent a copy of a portion of Mr. Trump’s taxes to a journalist in an effort to discredit him. There was a pattern to this, and Mr. Trump believed the Access Hollywood tape was just more oppo research. He’d take the hit and move on, he thought. But it wouldn’t be that simple.

  By seven p.m., the story had reached a critical mass. Republican officials couldn’t find the exits fast enough. News sites were hunting down candidates or anyone in leadership and posting lists of elected Republican officials who were publicly denouncing Donald Trump. We decided to issue a more forceful statement on camera. The team wrote it and sent it up to the boss, who by this time was in his office on the twenty-sixth floor making calls.

  “Well, I’m going to know who my friends are,” he said.

  As it turned out, there were fewer than he thought.

  We went down to the fifth floor, the cinder block bunker, where Corey had his campaign office and where we had built a studio where Kellyanne, Sean Spicer (who had joined the team), and Dave did TV hits regularly. As we were getting the set ready, the boss told Jason he wanted a teleprompter because of the length of the statement. He had started using one consistently after we hired Gabe Perez (George found Gabe by Googling “teleprompters.” He made the device user friendly for the boss, learning just how he liked it positioned. He became a whiz at breaking down and setting up the teleprompter, because he’d fly with us on Trump Force One around the country). But Gabe wasn’t on call that night, and the television production crew, Mike and Erik Abate and Ryan Schmidt, had already gone home for the weekend. Luckily, they were still on the road, somewhere in Westchester, when we got in touch with them. While we waited for the crew to return, someone ordered pizza. Everyone stood around in the bunker eating slices. We knew the situation was bad. The tape would have been damaging at any time, Mr. Trump thought, but just as early voting began and only a month before the election? It would be tough to erase the words the boss had said from the minds of 50 percent of the people who’d vote in that short time.

  Mr. Trump came down and never sat down. Minutes ticked by like hours in one of the most stress-filled days anyone on staff could recall.

  The crew arrived just as we finished the pizza. A little while later, we started shooting. It was nearly nine. We’d told Sean Hannity that we’d have the video ready for his show, which aired at ten. But at ten thirty, we were still reviewing it. When we finally got it done, we called over to Hannity. It was five to eleven. Too late.

  We did, however, make the eleven o’clock news block. We had used the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline, and Mr. Trump looked uncomfortable and sounded stilted and canned. Someone, we forget who, called it a “hostage video” and the name stuck.

  But it was an apology. And at least it satisfied those close to the boss.

  “The words my husband used are unacceptable and offensive to me,” Mrs. Trump said in a statement. “This does not represent the man that I know. I hope people will accept his apology, as I have, and focus on the important issues facing our nation and the world.” People don’t realize that Melania Trump is the rock in the family, and one of the classiest people you’ll ever meet. Melania gave us good advice and counsel as the campaign unfolded. She became a huge asset during the campaign and we could not have been successful without her.

  On Saturday morning, we had an all-hands-on-deck meeting with senior staff and Mr. Trump in his residence. Sitting around the room in a circle were Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Hope Hicks, Governor Chris Christie (wearing his trademark New York Giants gear), Mayor Giuliani, and Dave. Whether Reince Priebus was there when the meeting started is a matter of debate. He and Senator Jeff Sessions had gone back to DC after the tape came out the night before. What is certain was the heat the campaign was feeling. The statements already released ranged from Robert De Niro saying he was going to punch Donald Trump in the mouth to Bob and Rebekah Mercer’s “America is finally fed up and disgusted with its political elite. Trump is channeling this disgust, and those among the political elite who quake before the boom box of media blather do not appreciate the apocalyptic choice that America faces on November eighth.” The Mercers aside, most of the blowback was bad. Very bad. And no one was feeling the pressure of it worse than the RNC chairman. Reince had taken dozens of calls from very influential Republicans, like Speaker Paul Ryan, who weren’t nearly as supportive as Bob and Rebekah. There were big donors, state party chairs, members of the house and senate, all calling for Donald Trump to step aside. Reince hadn’t gotten a single call backing Trump.

  Reince says that there was never a question in his mind whether or not to come back to New York for the meeting.

  But according to Bannon, Reince wasn’t in the residence when the meeting began, and he had to call him and talk him into coming. According to Steve, that conversation went something like this:

  “Where the hell are you?” Steve asked.

  “I got off the train in Newark,” Priebus said. “I’m going to turn around.”

  “No you’re not,” Bannon said.

  According to Bannon, Reince wasn’t easily swayed. The RNC chair started telling him about the calls he’d been taking for the past twenty-four hours.

  “It’s horrible. The worst ever. People are dropping like flies,” he said.

  “Whether this thing ends today or not,” Bannon said finally, “you have to do the perp walk.”

  By the perp walk, he meant the lobby of Trump Tower, which was packed with media. All of us had to walk through the squall. It was Saturday, so people were dressed casually. Rudy was in a suit but had a Yankees jacket over it; but Kellyanne, the savviest with the media of all of us, knew that the lobby was getting worldwide attention. She had her hair done, wore a smart leather jacket, and carried a Chanel bag.

  Whether it’s Priebus’s or Bannon’s version that’s correct, what everyone agrees on is what Reince said when he arrived at the Trump residence. The boss had gone around the circle and asked for everyone’s opinion. In looking back, Reince didn’t think people were as blunt as they should have been. For a moment he thought he had stepped into some alternative universe.

  When it c
ame his time to talk, he took a deep breath. “With all due respect, sir, you have two choices,” Reince began. “One, you lose the biggest electoral landslide in American history and take everybody with you, or, two, you can drop out of the race and let someone else be the nominee.”

  A tense silence fell over the room. It wasn’t like Reince’s words were so shocking, however. The same thought was banging around in everybody’s head. How could it not be? That’s what we do for a living: we think about options and liabilities of candidates. Still, hearing Reince say the words out loud amplified the reality of the situation. To be truthful, there were some there who expressed real doubts about Trump’s chances of success. Governor Pence issued a statement that read: “I do not condone his remarks and cannot defend them,” the statement read. “We pray for his family and look forward to the opportunity he has to show what is in his heart when he goes before the nation tomorrow night.”

  But in Donald Trump, there was no such equivocation. Mr. Trump leaned forward in his seat. His jaw was set. He looked directly at Reince.

  “First of all,” he began, “I’m going to win. And second, if the Republican Party is going to run away from me, then I will take you all down with me. But I’m not going to lose.”

  Collectively, the people around the room, Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, Kellyanne, and Dave, had been through scores of campaigns. But none of us had experienced a similar moment. Even if we didn’t share his confidence, there wasn’t a person present who didn’t admire the guy’s balls. Even Reince.

  After the meeting broke up, we all discussed the turn of events. A few hours later we would meet again on the twenty-fifth floor for debate prep. The team decided to give an exclusive interview with the boss to David Muir. At first, we believed the ABC News anchor didn’t want to do the interview for fear of how the boss would make him look, both on air and afterward on Twitter. Somebody, however (possibly his boss?) talked him into doing the hit. He’d ultimately decided to do the interview but it took Muir and his crew about an hour to get to the lobby of Trump Tower, but by then we’d changed our minds.

  Meanwhile, down on Fifth Avenue outside Trump Tower, a crowd began to form. At first, we thought they must be protesters, but then Keith said: “No, they’re ours, and there are hundreds of them.”

  “I’m going down,” Mr. Trump said.

  Dave called Mark Halberstadt, the Secret Service detail leader. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “But the boss wants to go outside.”

  Halberstadt told Dave they would need fifteen minutes. What they really needed was another full detail. When the elevator doors opened in the lobby, every camera light flicked on, and a swarm of reporters descended on Trump. Somehow we made it through the crush and out the gold-framed front doors to the chant of “USA, USA.” With NYPD circling him, the boss walked straight into the throng, waving, shaking hands, and giving the thumbs-up. The campaign was back.

  Just maybe, we thought, things weren’t as bad as they looked.

  As with most weekends, we had booked all the Sunday-morning news shows, but after the tape came out, Kellyanne, Governor Christie, and Reince wouldn’t do them and you really couldn’t blame them.

  Still, it would have looked terrible if we didn’t do at least one of the shows. Then Mr. Trump’s oldest friend in the room stepped up.

  “I’ll do them, I’ll do them all,” Rudy Giuliani said.

  “The full Ginsburg!” someone replied.

  Named after Monica Lewinsky’s lawyer, William H. Ginsburg, “the full Ginsburg” is the act of appearing on all five Sunday news programs. Ginsburg pulled off the trick in 1996 during the height of the President Clinton–Monica Lewinsky scandal.

  We tipped our hats to America’s Mayor. Never mind the stamina, it would take pure courage to run the Sunday-morning gauntlet. But the hero of 9/11 came through while Chuck Todd, Jake Tapper, George Stephanopoulos, Chris Wallace, and John Dickerson took turns pummeling him.

  We were sitting in Trump Force One on the tarmac about to go wheels up to the debate in St. Louis when Rudy staggered onto the plane. He looked like he’d been in a cage fight. The campaign staff high-fived him as he walked passed us.

  “Way to go, Rudy!” we said.

  He made his way to the front and found his usual seat across from Mr. Trump. Sure, I got beat-up, he thought, but it was worth it. He believed in Trump, and he knew Trump believed in him.

  “Man, Rudy, you sucked. You were weak. Low energy,” Mr. Trump said to him.

  “Well, I—”

  “You let them talk to you like you were a baby,” Mr. Trump said laughing—which is the way Mr. Trump has been known to be if he is critical of someone but can recognize the humor in a situation as well. While the criticism is real, he appreciates the situation and is the first to recognize the humor in it.

  Just about every newspaper in the country—and around the world, for that matter—had the campaign’s obituary on its front page. According to news accounts, we were in “crisis mode” and once again they used their favorite parlance, “death spiral.” There were reports that a mass exodus was under way in Trump Tower and that even Mike Pence was packing his parachute. Speaker Paul Ryan wouldn’t be caught dead being seen with us—he went so far as to disinvite us from an event in Wisconsin—and told his House members to “do what’s best for you,” which presumably meant keep as far away from Trump as they could. Someone recorded him on a call saying, “Cut Trump loose.” News stories told of the coming demise not only of the Trump campaign for president but also the entirety of the Republican Party.

  The boss responded to the negative tsunami with, as usual, a Tweet:

  “It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to.”

  As Trump Force One streaked westerly thirty thousand feet above the fray, Mr. Trump sat in his seat reading the New York Times. Though he truly does think the paper’s failing and promotes fake news, he reads it cover to cover regularly and has for most of his adult life. Mr. Trump is a New Yorker to his core. Born and raised there, he is as tough as concrete. It was either Hope or Corey who once asked him if he ever cried. The question stumped him. He thought for some time before he answered.

  “Once, I think,” he said. “When I was a baby.”

  It wasn’t the truth. But he never shows weakness.

  Yes, he came from a well-off family, but Fred, his father, was a hardworking man. He made his son Donald and his siblings work as soon as they were able. It was Fred who taught him about business and negotiations and how to find opportunity in every situation, even in the direst of circumstances.

  The polls that would come out on the following Monday would have us down by double digits again. Been there, done that. Not news for us—it just meant we’d have to work even harder. The boss was about to turn the campaign up to the next level.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM

  It used to be cars were made in Flint and you couldn’t drink the water in Mexico. Now cars are made in Mexico, and you can’t drink the water in Flint, but we’re going to turn this around.

  —DONALD J. TRUMP, SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

  ON A SNOWY January night in 2002, the New England Patriots played the Oakland Raiders in the divisional round of the AFC playoffs. Tom Brady had just completed his first full regular season as a starter. Trailing by ten points in the fourth quarter, Brady marched the Pats down the field, connecting on nine passes in a row in the frigid conditions. He ran the last six yards himself for the touchdown, narrowing the deficit to three. With time running out, he drove the team into field goal range, and the Patriots’ kicker Adam Vinatieri kicked a forty-five-yarder to send the game into overtime. The Pats would get the ball first in the extra period, and the Raiders wouldn’t get a chance to run a single offensive play. Brady completed another eight passes in a row to set up the winning field goal.

  Two weeks later, Brady would lead the Patriots to a Supe
r Bowl victory over the heavily favored St. Louis Rams. It would be the first of three Super Bowl wins for the Patriots over the next four years.

  Ask any of us, Corey, Dave, or Mr. Trump, who the best big-game player in professional football history is, and you’ll get the same answer: Tom Brady. There’s just no question.

  In our opinion, there’s no question who the best big-game player is in politics either. Donald J. Trump.

  By the second general election debate, held on October 9, 2016 at Washington University in St. Louis, the polls had us down six to seven points on average, and Nate Silver, another real genius, had Hillary with an 86 percent chance of winning the election. Unfortunately for us, those polls had been taken before the release of the Access Hollywood tape.

  By nearly every measure, with one month to go to the election, in the fourth quarter of the race, we were in deep trouble.

  The pressure on Mr. Trump was crushing. Some of the highest-ranking and most influential people in Republican politics were telling him to resign from the race. Smelling blood, the other side went for the kill, sending Michelle Obama to New Hampshire, where she delivered a withering denunciation of the boss that set Twitter and Facebook on fire. Op-eds and editorial pages across the country excoriated him. Even those closest to Mr. Trump offered little support. Any normal candidate would have had trouble showing up at an event in a high school gymnasium, never mind a debate that would be seen by a television audience the size of the Super Bowl’s—over eighty million people.

  What made his appearance on the stage in St. Louis even more remarkable was his lack of experience with the format in which the debate was to take place. The town hall setting, in which candidates take questions from the audience without a podium to stand behind, makes even the best debaters quake with fear. Once again, Hillary Clinton spent days in preparation. After the Access Hollywood tape came out, our prep amounted to a meeting at Bedminster, one session at Trump Tower, and a discussion in the boss’s hotel suite in St. Louis led by Reince Priebus. What with all that was going on, it was hard for the staff to focus, but Reince did an outstanding job under difficult circumstances.