Speaking for Myself Read online

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  For my husband, Bryan, without whom this book and this wonderful life would never have been possible. I couldn’t nor would I want to do any of it without you. No one can annoy me more or make me happier than you!

  And to our three beautiful, wild, and crazy kids, Scarlett, Huck, and George: you provide endless content, keep me humble, and have shown me how to love bigger than I thought possible.

  You are each the best part of me. I love you!

  1

  Kill ’Em All

  It was Christmas night 2018, and our home in Arlington, Virginia, was filled with the aromas of the traditional “Sanders Christmas Dinner”—plates of marinated-overnight, slow-cooked beef brisket, hash brown casserole filled with cheese just the way our three kids like it, spaghetti squash, Brussels sprouts with crisp bits of bacon, sautéed mushrooms, and warm buttered bread. We topped it off with my bourbon chocolate pecan pie, made famous by CNN’s April Ryan after she went on an angry tirade doubting I made it. April should have known better than to question the authenticity of a southern woman’s pie!

  Around the table my husband, Bryan; our children, Scarlett, Huck, and George; my mother- and father-in-law in from Kansas City; Bryan’s sister Virginia, an elementary school teacher from Denver; Bryan’s brother David, who is completing his postdoc in neuroscience at Princeton; and David’s girlfriend Mel were all scrunched together. They’d come in to celebrate a relaxing Christmas with us. It was great to actually use our dining room for once, which during my two and a half years in the White House was more commonly used as a storage room, while we ate meals in the kitchen either reheated out of the freezer or picked up at a nearby Chick-fil-A.

  After dinner we cleared the dishes, threw away the last of the mounds of torn wrapping paper, and laughed at the new basketball goal “Santa” had brought but that our kids never actually received, because Bryan destroyed it during the “easy-to-assemble” process on Christmas Eve. Maybe one of these years Bryan will start putting the kids’ gifts together before midnight on Christmas Eve, but after seven Christmases with our kids and many near-traumatic Christmas mornings later, I won’t hold my breath (I still love him anyway).

  As we read books, said goodnight prayers, and tucked in our worn-out kids, who in their excitement had woken up way too early to open presents, I glanced at the time and announced, “I hate to do this, but I’m going to have to leave because something has come up.” My in-laws weren’t used to the kind of “somethings” that those of us working at the White House had become familiar with and assumed I must be kidding. After all, it was late on Christmas, and we were three days into what became the longest government shutdown in US history. They only realized I was serious when I said, “It’s not an emergency, but I’m not able to discuss it and I’m afraid I have to leave right now.” I sincerely apologized because I knew I wouldn’t be back before their departure the following morning. I said my good-byes dressed in Lululemon yoga pants and a casual pullover, which prompted Bill, my normally not-so-fashion-conscious father-in-law, to ask, “Should you change before going in? If not, I hope you keep a change of clothes at the office!” I assured him I did and said not to worry, but if he had only known the real purpose for my abrupt departure, he would have been worried. I didn’t show it, but I wasn’t as calm as I was letting on. I understood the gravity of what I would be doing for the next several hours.

  For the first time in nearly two years I drove myself to Joint Base Andrews–Naval Air Facility, a massive military complex covering nearly seven square miles of land. Among its many missions, it is home to Air Force One. En route, I made multiple calls to my good friend and occasional Air Force One spades partner, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Walsh. Walsh was a retired officer in the United States Coast Guard, former presidential military aide at the White House, and former White House military office director. Aside from his distinguished career in the military and being one of the most knowledgeable people in the country about White House operations, Walsh is a really fun person to be around and someone all of us counted on. In the midst of some of our hardest days I was often in Walsh’s West Wing office venting, laughing, then walking out with a reminder of why we showed up to our jobs every day.

  Walsh was in charge of planning and executing the highly classified and top-secret mission of the next forty-eight hours, and I wanted to make sure I was going in the right direction. This was one time that being late wouldn’t be optional—or forgiven. Too many people were involved and were unable to disclose to their families on Christmas Day what duty was calling so urgently. After making fun of me for being “directionally challenged” Dan talked me through each turn. Because I was paying more attention to his precise directions than to other vehicles, I came close to getting killed twice. In what seemed like a longer than usual commute, I pulled up to the designated gate and went through several tightly controlled military checkpoints. They instructed me to follow an unmarked car to a parking lot where a small but familiar senior White House staff gathered.

  I spotted Walsh and Dan Scavino, one of my closest friends at the White House, fellow road warrior, and senior advisor to the president. Scavino had worked for the president longer than anyone else in the White House and spent more time with him than just about any other administration official. He was the ultimate Trump insider, and far more influential than the media gave him credit for being (probably because he didn’t leak to them). Scavino was my confidant, social media coach, and sounding board, and became like a brother to me over the three and a half years I worked for the president on his campaign and in the White House. We often spent our time on the road watching videos of one another’s kids, teasing our friend and colleague Stephen Miller, and working side by side to execute tasks the president assigned us. Stephen was known to many for his hard-line stance against illegal immigration and combative (and often wildly entertaining) media appearances. But the Stephen I got to know during my time in the administration was one of the funniest, most passionate, and thoughtful people in the building. No one on staff could articulate the president’s vision and agenda better than Stephen, and his role was so much greater than just a speechwriter or policy advisor. Both Stephen Miller and Dan Scavino were irreplaceable in President Trump’s inner circle.

  Though all of us had traveled dozens of times on Air Force One from Andrews, this night was different. We stood quietly and nervously outside in the pitch-black and the freezing cold awaiting instructions. After a few minutes of anxious chatter, we loaded onto small unmarked black buses and drove to a section of Andrews that I had never seen.

  Air Force One, a gigantic Boeing 747, was still in the hangar. Normally when we were traveling with the president on Air Force One, we would pull onto the tarmac and see the iconic light blue and white plane lit up like a night game at a major league baseball stadium. This was the first time we had ever seen Air Force One in the hangar.


  The buses pulled into the building and the massive doors closed behind us. Each of us grabbed our small carry-on bags containing only a few personal items—we wouldn’t be gone long—and boarded Air Force One using the small built-in stairs under the plane instead of the large ones they typically pull up to the side door.

  Meanwhile, President Trump and First Lady Melania quietly snuck out of the White House through a secret exit and were driven by United States Secret Service from the White House to Andrews.

  Just before midnight the president and first lady boarded Air Force One with no fanfare and no photos capturing the pair. Later, aboard the plane, the president walked down the corridor from his office to the conference room and told us in the way only he can about their great escape from the White House: “I’m feeling my way off the White House grounds with no lights, stumbling around…,” making wild hand motions to drive his point home. “Having no motorcade is kind of cool, almost makes you feel normal again.” (The Secret Service was quick to reassure us the first couple was 100 percent safe throughout their departure.) For the president, this was the most normal ride he had taken in nearly two years, while for the rest of us—even after all our time at the White House—nothing about the last couple of hours on this Christmas night felt normal at all.

  Air Force One pulled out of the hangar and powered down the runway, lifting off into the midnight sky. The windows through which we’d ordinarily watch Washington disappear were closed, the plane’s exterior lights turned off, and our normally functioning phones and computers shut down. We were off the grid.

  On board were the president, First Lady Melania Trump, Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Walsh, National Security Advisor John Bolton, Senior Advisor Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor Dan Scavino, Communications Director for the First Lady Stephanie Grisham, Chief of Staff to the First Lady Lindsay Reynolds, presidential aide Nick Luna, Deputy Press Secretary Lindsay Walters, a few other White House staff, members of the press, and an army of US Secret Service agents loaded down with enough advanced weaponry to invade a small country.

  So far, so good.

  Earlier in the week I had met with all of the Washington bureau chiefs for the five major television news outlets that are each part of the traveling presidential press pool. The press pool is a rotating group of thirteen journalists who travel with and cover the president everywhere he goes. They take videos and pictures of his every move, document his every word, and provide pool reports that go to thousands of journalists providing a second-by-second, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour historical account of just about everything the president does. They ride in every motorcade and aboard every Air Force One flight, and attend just about every event on the president’s schedule. The name of the pool comes from the space where the White House press briefings are typically held—it used to be where the White House swimming pool was, but now is home to the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, named after President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary who was shot during the assassination attempt on the president.

  Walsh and I had sat down with the DC bureau chiefs for ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and FOX in a secure room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, a large French–architecturally styled building adjacent to the White House that spans the equivalent of nearly a dozen football fields. The Eisenhower Executive Office Building used to house nearly the entire federal government, including the Department of State and Department of War, but thanks to the ever-expanding size of our federal government can now only accommodate the majority of the president’s staff who don’t have offices in the West Wing of the White House.

  We confiscated each participant’s phone before the meeting started and put them in protected lockers. We then walked them through the plan for the following week. We explained how important it was that this information not leak, and that doing so could put their team as well as the president and his team in danger. Everyone in the room understood the risks and in this moment we were all working together. They—along with the print reporters and photographers in the pool we later briefed about the trip—agreed to the terms and we spent the next several days in communication about the details and logistics. No one ever leaked it—perhaps another first for this White House. Prior to boarding Air Force One on the day of the trip we again confiscated the phones and equipment of every member of the press pool to make sure no one inadvertently jeopardized the trip. They reluctantly turned them over.

  Air Force One is a plane like no other in the world. It serves as a functioning Oval Office and Situation Room in the sky for the president when he travels, and includes security features that make it nearly impossible for an enemy to attack it. Air Force One is divided into several sections. In the back you have the thirteen members of the press pool and one White House press staffer called a wrangler, who is always with the press to help them move from place to place, as well as members of the Air Force One crew. Just in front of them are members of the Secret Service, and then a staff cabin usually filled with support staff and special guests traveling with the president—but on this flight the only people in this entire section were the much larger than usual contingent of heavily armed Secret Service agents. There is a fully equipped office and a large office-sized copier and printer that took a lot of abuse from Stephen Miller and Staff Secretary Derek Lyons—a confidante, constant collaborator, and although never the loudest guy in the room typically one of the smartest—due to its endless paper jams and breakdowns. Just to the left of the office is where the White House photographer, stenographer, and the White House IT and communications team sit. This group helps keep track of the historical account of everything the president does and keeps the president and staff around him in touch with the rest of the world wherever we go. A few feet in front of them is another section for White House staff and the Military Aide, who carries the nuclear football and keeps track of every contingency plan for the president at all times. There are five Mil-aides always assigned to the president—one from each branch of the military. They are the cream of the crop from their respective branches—tough, smart, strategic, and if available always my spades partners on Air Force One. A short walk down the hall brings you to a large conference room where the president has meetings, cabinet members or elected officials sit, staff watch movies, news, and sporting events, play cards, eat meals, and on long overseas trips is where you will find many members of the staff asleep on the floor or on one of the two highly coveted couches. At the front of the plane there is a small senior staff cabin, kitchen, medical unit, and the president’s office and bedroom.

  On Christmas night on Air Force One we were gathered in the conference room trading stories about leaving our families so confused about our abrupt departure for a secret destination. As we engaged in mostly fun and lighthearted chatter Walsh and Tony Ornato, the head of the president’s protective detail in the US Secret Service and someone we had all come to love, admire, and depend on, walked in. Tony was the man most responsible for keeping the president and his family safe, and he is a hero in more ways than one. On another trip we made, to the UK, Tony was walking across a crowded bridge in London on his way to meet the rest of us for dinner and passed by a young girl who appeared distressed. The girl looked at Tony, and he noticed a look of despair in her eyes as she turned and hurled herself off the bridge into the water a hundred feet below. Tony looked over the edge, ready to jump in after her, but he determined he probably couldn’t survive the fall, sprinted across the bridge, threw his body through a locked door of a building, and ran down several flights of stairs to the main floor of the building level with the river, where he was able to follow her body as it drifted downstream and radio local authorities the exact location to find her and pull her out. The girl miraculously survived. Afterward Tony said he just did what anybody else would do in that situation.

  Tony and Walsh had come by to give us some additional details and guidance for when we arrived. They briefed us on the dangers of
being in a war zone and Tony said, “If at any time you hear a loud whizzing or whistling sound it means we’re under attack—and you need to take cover immediately.” He explained there are bunkers all around—“just run to one of them and jump in.” The night had just gotten real. While we knew it could be dangerous this was when the fear really set in.

  For a moment I was pretty terrified. Tony and Walsh could sense it and tried to put me at ease. I told Walsh not to leave my side while we were on the ground and make sure I knew where I was supposed to be if something happened. Given that he was in charge of executing the entire operation I knew it was an unfair request, but he reassured me he wouldn’t let me out of his sight.

  We sat down to dinner in the Air Force One conference room. Undoubtedly the best food and service you’ll find anywhere on a plane is on Air Force One, thanks to the amazing work of members of the US Air Force. Every time you board the plane you have an assigned seat with an Air Force One seat card with your name on it, to let you know where your seat is for that leg. Each meal is served on Air Force One china—ivory plates with a gold band around the edge and the Presidential Seal at 12 o’clock, and napkins with the seal. There is a set meal for each flight and that night we had traditional lasagna, Italian salad, cappuccino cheesecake, and our choice of beverage.

  After dinner I walked up to the president’s cabin, where the president is usually working and rarely sleeps. He typically carries ten to fifteen (I believe the record is twenty-one) file boxes full of newspapers, magazines, articles, briefing papers, and other documents to go over while we are in the air. Sometimes he will read or see something that catches his eye and will call one of us up to discuss it.