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A Playful Love In The White House

11/22/2019

President Donald Trump, stands with first lady Melania, surrounded by Christmas trees, in the White House

   Journalists often try to look for a wedge between the first couple. The president was known for calling out, “Where’s my supermodel?” Was this demeaning? Melania was once asked.
   She only smiled. “It’s his sense of humor.”

   Other members of the Trump family insisted that the two, the president and the first lady, were often playful in their repartee. For example, while outwardly, officially, the various Trump family members would talk about what a privilege it was to serve their country, and you could ask them how they were holding up to the scurrilous public attacks and they would all answer back graciously, the fact was that privately, it was a nightmare, and they all knew it. No first family in recent memory had gone through what they were going through. It was much worse than Donald Trump’s original warnings back at the family meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey.

   The president would occasionally ease the tension by teasing the first lady, saying, sarcastically, with puffed up importance, “Melania, honey, look at this incredible journey I have brought you on.”
   “It’s like a joke between them at every dinner,” Lara says. “Everyone is attacking all of us and she’s smeared for no reason other than pure jealousy and he says, ‘Hon, isn’t this amazing? This journey that I have allowed you to come on?’
   “And she’s like, ‘Oh yeah, thank you so much.’

*From the pages of Inside Trump's White House

Doug Wead, Cover of New Book, Inside Trump's White House, the real story of his presidency

Excerpts and Stories from Doug's New Book Inside Trump's White House

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The Night Donald Trump Achieved The Biggest Upset In American History

11/20/2019

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President Donald J. Trump, with first lady Melania, giving a speech, in front of American flags

   Donald Trump met privately with his wife, Melania. “Baby, I’ll tell you what. We’re not going to win tonight, because the polls have come out, and it’s looking bad.
   "But, you know what, I’m okay with it. I couldn’t have worked any harder. You can’t do any worse than that. I mean, I just couldn’t have done it. And if I lose, I lose. And you know what? If I lose, I’m going to have a nice, easy life. We can all relax, together, right?”
   But Melania, who had consistently told him from the beginning that he would win, would have none of it. Again, at this moment, when the experts all agreed it was over, and it was being proclaimed on television and he was giving her the bad news, she was still not convinced. She listened politely and then then answered back once again. “It’s not over,” she told him. “You are going to win.”

   Donald Trump may have been a little skeptical, but he did not totally reject Brad Parscale’s numbers.
   “Their numbers are all based on the wrong turnout probabilities,” Parscale insisted. “You are going to win, sir.”
   “Well, you may be right,” Trump said to Brad.

   During this conversation, someone asked the candidate what he would do if the networks were right—which it appeared was going to happen. What should they plan? Would he stop by the party at the Hilton to greet the people who were waiting? They needed to know how to handle it.
   “You know what?” Trump said, “I’m just going to go downstairs and make a statement and the next day I’ll get on my plane and go play golf in Ireland.” That was it. That was how the marathon presidential campaign would end. Right where it had begun. At the bottom of that escalator in Trump Tower. Or out on the streets of Fifth Avenue.

The Results

President Donald Trump, talking in a hallway, with Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner

For a moment, still uncertain, waiting for television anchors to confirm what his own team was telling him, Donald Trump sat transfixed by what he was seeing on television. He was now watching the Clinton supporters at the Javits Center as they tracked the returns. There was a slight, delayed reaction to what he was learning from his own team and what was being reported to the public.

"Look at these crying Clinton supporters, imagine how they feel?" Trump said, studying the tear-streaked faces of young ladies at the Javits Center. "They never saw it coming. Just think how hard they have worked. It must be terrible. It must be terrible."

For weeks, he had been bracing himself for those same feelings. Ivanka was struck by the contrast between her father’s mood and the jubilation echoing in the staff rooms in other parts of Trump Tower. She understood the joy of the team, even the gloating. They had every right to rejoice in a very hard-fought and bitter political victory. “New York hates you!” the crowd had screamed at the Trumps when they had voted earlier that day. But Ivanka knew her father was in no mood to rub it in.
“This was a part of Donald Trump that the public doesn’t see,” she told me in an interview about that night. “He defies typecasting. I think it’s an area in which he is misunderstood. He is really very compassionate.”

Trump dramatically ripped up the speech. “This is totally wrong,” he said. “We have to reach out to those people we saw crying tonight and we have to tell them that it’s going to be okay. And we are going to come together.”

Ivanka remembered the moment as almost magical. “His instinct was so immediate and so strong,” she said, referring to her father’s mood. “It was a beautiful thing. His first reaction was to feel deeply about what the Clinton supporters were experiencing. And partly because everyone had told them that this was an outcome that was not possible. He was supersensitive to that, and you saw it reflected in his words.
“It was close to midnight by then.” Ivanka recalled. “And yet, in that brief moment, none of us felt tired. We felt good about the country, and I felt good about my father and his desire to bring the country together. I have so many photos of us just sitting together and rewriting that speech. The feeling in that room was really something beautiful.”

*From the pages of Inside Trump's White House

Historian, Doug Wead's, New Book, Inside Trump's White House

Excerpts and Stories from Doug's New Book Inside Trump's White House

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Exclusive Excerpt - Inside Trump's White House: The Real Story Of His Presidency

11/10/2019

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President Donald Trump, United States, talks about healthcoverage, in the Rose Garden, in the White House

As a candidate, Trump’s frequent refrain was “America First.” We should take care of our own problems, he said, before meddling in the business of other nations. But the words “America First” were also a reminder that other countries were competing for our attention and our resources. One reason Trump had entered politics was his long-felt frustration over the nation’s trade deficits and defense arrangements, which he believed had led to the economic bloodletting of the American middle class. Were Americans being taxed to take care of the rest of the world? Trump had also complained that massive regulations, especially onerous to homegrown American businesses, had chased companies and jobs out of the country.

The challenge for Trump was determining how to take this on. Those jobs were going somewhere. Those trade deficits were benefiting someone. Our massive military expenditures were protecting other nations, freeing them to spend their money on other things.

The tax dollars that had fled America under Bush and Obama, on a massive scale, were now funding other nations’ government programs. They were building highways and airports in the capitals of other nations. An American president who had promised to make his country great again would have to pry loose those American dollars from the clutches of nations that had become addicted to them and that would not give them up willingly. America was not alone in the world. If Donald Trump was really going to put America first, the rest of the world was going to howl.

And it was even more complicated than that. The world of commerce had grown so international and interconnected that most big American banks and companies had also found a way to benefit from the money flowing to other countries. “America First” would be resisted not only by a long list of nations that were sucking from the teat of the American middle class, but also by many of America’s corporate giants, many of which were major advertisers and owners of the American media. Trump was in for the fight of his life.

President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, Inside Trump's White House

Our biggest trade deficits were often with countries that manipulated their currencies and stole American intellectual property, including top-secret military technology. Much of this, especially the key relationships of major American corporations with China, was driven by insider deals and a vast maze of “legalized” corruption. Many of those companies also sponsored the US news organizations whose stories promoted those same policies to the American people.

All of those companies gave massive donations to the Democratic and Republican parties and to key legislators. They financed many well-intentioned special-interest groups that promoted regulations that caused economic hardship for small businesses, conveniently resulting in monopolies for themselves. They financed think tanks that commissioned scholars to write papers and conduct studies to justify the status quo.

America’s universities, addicted to foreign students who were paying full tuition, openly advocated globalism and funded supporters such as Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, who was reportedly paid $350,000 by Harvard University to teach a single class. This is the same woman who conveniently promoted the idea of government-paid, free college education. It was hard for some to see Harvard University, which had a $37.6 billion endowment, in need of further government subsidy.

President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, in the Oval Office, on the phone, in the White House

In a conversation with the president, I brought up these issues. “When you were first elected and took office, you obviously began to learn details that the rest of us don’t know,” I said. “You had all of these ideas for years, decades really, ideas about the world and about trade and corruption. You’ve given speeches about it. How did all of that change when you became president? Was it as bad as you thought?”

“It is even worse,” the president said. “It is far worse than I thought.

“The good news,” he added, “is that we have great potential. We are turning it all around. And that’s one of the reasons this country is rebounding.

“I can give you twelve countries right now. You would be shocked! How about Germany? How about Saudi Arabia? These are great countries. These are rich countries. Some of the richest countries in the world.

“So, we defend Saudi Arabia and they don’t pay us, okay?”

The president shifts in his chair, preparing me for his impersonation of an actual conversation. You’ve got to love this; remember, Trump is an entertainer.

President Donald Trump, holds bilateral meeting, with Saudi Arabia, King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud

“So, I told the king, ‘You’ve got to pay. Okay, king? You’ve got to pay.’”

The president then pursed his lips to mimic the dignity of King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia. “And the king says, ‘Yes, and how much would you like?’

“Imagine? Imagine?” Trump said. “The Saudis have been doing this for years, but nobody ever asked them to help pay for it. Saudi Arabia wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for American support. It is the most incredible thing I have ever seen. Our roads are falling apart, our bridges are in danger, our airports look like they are in developing countries, and you have years and years of us protecting the world while they all grow rich. Doug, I hope you can see right now how crazy this is.”

He impersonated King Salman once again, pursing his lips. “‘Yes, and how much would you like?’

“I say, ‘Hasn’t anybody ever asked you before?’

“He says, ‘Well, no. Nobody ever asked us.’

“This is how America was run. For years. For years. And there is so much I could tell you. It’s worse than I thought.”

Historian, Doug Wead, New Book, Inside Trump's White House, The Real Story of His Presidency

Excerpts and Stories from Doug's New Book Inside Trump's White House

ORDER HERE

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I Interviewed The Trump Family For Two Years And THIS Is What I Found

11/3/2019

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Historian Doug Wead, with President of the United States, Donald Trump, in the White House, Oval Office

Like others, I have enjoyed reading the titillating, racy stories that have issued forth from bestselling books about the Trump White House. At times I felt nagging pangs of doubt, wondering why the stories always have come from anonymous sources.

Doesn't anyone ever go on record nowadays? And why were so many stories later denied by their cited sources? So when I got the opportunity to write an insider history of the Trump White House I fairly tripped over my own feet to get through the doors.

“Michael Beschloss came to Mar-a-Lago right after I won the election,” the president told me, referring to the bestselling presidential historian. “He kissed my a-- for a week, now he’s on television getting paid money to attack me.”

What I discovered inside the Trump bubble was quite different from what had been reported. No, Melania and Donald were not estranged, they were tender lovers, who playfully teased each other. On almost any subject -- North Korea, China, Mueller -- the president brought up her name.

President, United States, Donald Trump, with wife Melania Trump, welcoming Prime Minister of Japan and his wife

President Trump & First Lady Melania welcome Prime Minister of Japan & his wife

Publicly, the whole family talks about what a privilege it is to serve the country, but privately they have no illusions about the horror they are going through. The president sometimes eases the tension by teasing the first lady, saying, sarcastically, with puffed up importance, “Melania, honey, look at this incredible journey I have brought you on.”

Family picture of Eric Trump, Lara Trump, and son Luke Trump, Inside Trump's White House

Eric, Lara, & Luke Trump

“It’s like a joke between them,” Lara Trump told me. “Everyone is attacking all of us and she’s smeared for no reason other than pure jealousy and he says, ‘Hon, isn’t this amazing?’

“And she’s like, ‘Oh yeah, thank you so much.’ “It’s hilarious. I love it.”

What about the theory that Donald Trump decided to run for president after the April 30, 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner? Everyone in the family from the president on down dismissed the idea and then proceeded to tell me how it really happened.

What about that famous story of Bannon and Priebus and Ivanka Trump? When Bannon supposedly shouted to Ivanka, “You are just a f------ staffer?”

“Never happened,” Ivanka told me calmly.

“There’s no truth to it?” I persisted. It sold 100,000 books.

“None whatsoever,” she said. “My life is too important for me to waste in rivalries and in personal vendettas. I choose to think the best of people. Most of all, I choose to be happy. I have no time for bitterness.”

Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, arriving for President Trump's inauguration, with their children

Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, & children arriving for Trump's inauguration

Eric Trump

While I spent two years interviewing the family, a new book was published claiming to have the real story on how Donald Trump had chosen Mike Pence as his running mate. It was totally false.

“Want to know what really happened?” Eric Trump asked me. And he then related the details of that night he and his father had steaks together with Mike and Karen Pence, at the Capital Grille at the Conrad Hotel in Indianapolis.

It turns out that the real stories of what has been happening inside Trump-world are far more interesting than the fake ones.

The president let me read his private correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He gave me his theories on who hatched the Russian collusion conspiracy and why they did it.
So, with all the pressures, with talk of impeachment, what’s it like inside the White House these days?

“There are two kinds of staffers,” Jared Kushner told me. “Those who want to help Trump save the world, and those who want to save the world from Trump.”

Donald Trump is the sixth president I have interviewed and I came away impressed. Some will say that he is only lucky. He was lucky to win the nomination and the election. He was lucky to see what every great economist in the world had missed about the GDP, lucky at finding jobs that no one else could find, lucky at bringing back hostages that other presidents had left languishing in foreign prisons, lucky at achieving energy independence, lucky at defeating ISIS so easily.

Trump is, arguably, the first president in 40 years to avoid starting a hot war. You can say he is lucky. I say he is great.

Impeachment looms but the earlier, ridiculous claims that he is a Russian spy may have, ironically, inoculated him for history.

What’s it like in the eye of the Trump storm?

Calm and peaceful. “All of us hold out hope that the right thing will happen in the end,” Lara Trump told me. “Maybe we will all be long gone but, eventually, we will be vindicated and validated.”

Doug Wead, Inside Trump's White House, The real story of his presidency, history book

Excerpts and Stories from Doug's New Book Inside Trump's White House

ORDER TODAY

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Doug Wead is a historian and New York Times bestselling author. He has served as an adviser to two American presidents, co-authored a book with one of them and served on senior staff at the White House.

A Playful Love In The White House

The Night Donald Trump Achieved The Biggest Upset In American History

The Results

Exclusive Excerpt - Inside Trump's White House: The Real Story Of His Presidency

I Interviewed The Trump Family For Two Years And THIS Is What I Found

It turns out that the real stories of what has been happening inside Trump-world are far more interesting than the fake ones.

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