Then Trump exclaimed, having reached a conclusion:
“Merry Christmas to all! There was no collusion!”
Later that week I also attended and spoke at the White House Correspondents’ Association Christmas party, which was covered in the Washingtonian:
“It’s so nice to be among friends,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday night at a gathering for White House reporters, “which is why we invited so many people from the White House press staff.”
Sanders got her turn at the party lectern, and she brought jokes. “With so many writers in the room and so many people working on books, we thought the best way to do that was to walk through the top ten book titles of the first year of the Trump Administration,” Sanders said. “In true Trump Administration fashion, instead of ten we actually have 13 because we want to be the biggest and the best, and frankly we’re not that great at math.”
Among the faux book titles Sanders suggested: Off the Record by Anthony Scaramucci, the foulmouthed and short-lived communications director; An Insiders Guide to the Hatch Act by Conway with a foreword by Walter Shaub, the former director of Office of Government Ethics who’s now one of Twitter’s most popular Trump antagonists; Please Call on Me by Brian Karem, a magazine stringer who loudly admonished Sanders in June after one of her “fake news” riffs; and Moving Markets by Brian Ross, the suspended ABC News correspondent who incorrectly reported last week that Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor, was preparing to testify against Trump in the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. (Ross’s report was blamed by many on the right wing for causing a brief, albeit sharp, drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.)
Another title I mentioned: The Joy of Baking coauthored by April Ryan and Sarah Sanders.
I closed my remarks and said, “In all seriousness, I think that often people say I have the worst job in Washington. I think I have one of the best jobs in Washington.…” I really meant it. I loved my job, and I loved the people I had the privilege to work with every day, including the president, his family, the White House staff, and Secret Service. I even loved working with a lot of the White House correspondents. The White House correspondents are some of the toughest, smartest, most aggressive journalists in the world, and I enjoyed the challenge of going up against them.
There were more than five hundred credentialed members of the press with access to the White House, and only about a dozen staff in the White House Press Office. To say we were outnumbered is an understatement. The journalists covering the White House came at us 24/7 and I had to be regularly available to answer their questions and provide accurate and helpful information, while also making the case for the president and his policies. I doubt many of the White House correspondents voted for President Trump, and often their anti-Trump bias influenced their coverage, but there were journalists covering the White House who were professionals doing their best to get the story right. CNN’s Jim Acosta was not one of them.
In the early days of the administration, Jim Acosta was friendly off camera, going so far as to buy a round of drinks for our table at Le Diplomate one night, but the moment the cameras were on, it was the Jim Acosta show—grandstanding to build his profile as the leader of the anti-Trump resistance in the media. It reminded me of a lesson my dad taught me growing up in Arkansas when he was governor: “Just because a reporter is friendly doesn’t make him your friend.”
Acosta and a few other White House correspondents seemingly determined early on that their best path to a more lucrative TV or book deal was to make a scene at the televised White House press briefings. In previous administrations the White House press briefings were televised in their entirety mainly on C-SPAN. In the Trump administration, the briefings were often carried live on all the major cable TV networks, and clips of the briefing were then rebroadcast again and again throughout the day and the evening on cable and broadcast TV news programs and social media. The media exposure from the briefings was significant and Jim Acosta wasn’t going to let the opportunity to be the story instead of report on it go to waste. To be fair to his colleagues, most of them couldn’t stand him and were embarrassed by his unprofessional behavior.
The relationship between President Trump and CNN wasn’t good during the campaign, and got worse in the White House. CNN was desperate to compete with MSNBC for the most vehemently anti-Trump cable TV news viewers, and CNN was losing the ratings war to MSNBC—badly. Many reporters like to pretend that the media is all about reporting the news, when in fact the ultimate objective for any media outlet is to make money. In the TV news business, ratings are king, and CNN’s ratings were usually dead last among the major cable TV news networks. CNN’s coverage of the president became pretty much wall-to-wall negative, often focused on the latest conspiracy theory about the Trump campaign and Russia. CNN wasted the better part of two years spreading lies and fake news about the president and Russia. “CNN sucks!” became a rallying cry at the president’s rallies, at one point so loud it drowned out Jim Acosta’s live hit for the network.
One of the worst problems in the media today is the lack of separation between news and opinion. I rarely if ever agree with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow’s viewpoint, but she isn’t a news anchor, and she doesn’t pretend to be one either. She is a commentator, which means she is paid to give her opinion and frankly she’s not bad at it. Sean Hannity does the same on the right, and is very good at it, which is why he dominates and has the highest ratings on cable TV news. Maddow and Hannity each have a strong point of view, and that’s fine because their shows aren’t straight news—they’re primarily opinion and commentary. The news should be different. You shouldn’t be able to tell what a reporter’s point of view is. Their reporting should give the facts, not their opinions, and let you decide. We have lost this in journalism today. One only needs to follow the anti-Trump commentary on many reporters’ Twitter feeds to know this is true. Thankfully, not all reporters have fallen into this trap. There are still some excellent reporters and news anchors—and not just on Fox News!—who even after working with them for years I still don’t know what their point of view is or which side they’re on. But in too many cases in the media the line between news and opinion is blurred and in some cases that line doesn’t exist at all. CNN used to be a respected news outlet but is now driven largely by anti-Trump opinion masquerading as news.
In the fall of 2017, CNN announced they’d boycott the first White House Christmas party of the Trump presidency, and I responded: “Christmas comes early! Finally, good news from @CNN.” This didn’t go over well with the folks at CNN but it didn’t bother me at all! In one of my first of many contentious exchanges with Jim Acosta at a White House press briefing, Acosta said, “Journalists make honest mistakes, that doesn’t make them fake news,” as I patiently waited to let him finish his lecture.
“When journalists make honest mistakes, they should own up to them,” I said.
Acosta interrupted me, “We do.”
“Sometimes you do. And a lot of times you don’t.”
Acosta tried again to interrupt me, but I said, “I’m sorry, I’m not finished. There’s a very big difference between making honest mistakes, and purposefully misleading the American people.”
The exchange immediately went viral, with a meme circulating on social media that featured my face photoshopped over Xena: Warrior Princess as “Sarah Warrior Press Secretary.” In it, I was standing over Jim Acosta holding a club with a graphic that read “Wielding the fact hammer in a post-truth world.”
Not ashamed to make my point for me that CNN was “purposefully misleading the American people,” Jim Acosta wrote a purposefully misleading and totally fake story that the president was angry with me because he didn’t like one of my briefings. CNN ran it all day on their network, which was then picked up by other media outlets. What had actually happened was the president called me into his private dining room off the Oval Office after that particular briefing t
o tell me it was one of my best. He then called me in the next day again and said, “This CNN story is total bulls——. You’re doing a great job.” Ivanka even called CNN to ask for a correction, but CNN refused to do so and kept running the story anyway. It was a classic case of a media outlet taking the lies of one anonymous source “close to the White House” over the on-the-record denials of senior White House officials with actual firsthand knowledge.
It was a problem I dealt with repeatedly. Some reporters were all too willing to write misleading stories based on lies or misrepresentations from anonymous sources so long as it made the president or his team look bad. In some cases, you could easily identify the leakers because the reporters they leaked to often went out of their way to say nice things about them publicly. Some administration officials and “sources close to the White House” leaked to knife their rivals. Others did it to make it appear they were in the room or in proximity to power to feel important. And some leaked to advance a policy agenda that ran contrary to the president’s agenda, believing they were smarter than the president but evidently not smart enough to recognize that nobody had elected them to anything! I detested it all. Leaking was a shameful betrayal of the president’s trust and never in the best interest of the administration or the country. One of the most frustrating parts of my job as White House press secretary was cleaning up the mess. Even without the leaks, my job was all-consuming 24/7, but I sacrificed way too many nights I’d planned to be home to tuck my kids in bed or enjoy dinner with my husband to instead spend hours working to correct a story based on false or misleading leaks from administration officials or “sources close to the White House.” At one point the leaking got so out of control I’d had enough and lost it at a senior White House staff meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the West Wing. I erupted at my colleagues, and told them they were hurting the president and to cut it out. I was so angry and frustrated by a team I genuinely loved and cared about. No one said anything as I finished my impassioned plea, got up, and stormed out of the room.
As we neared the end of 2017, the Senate was set to vote on the president’s tax cut—the biggest in American history. The legislation would cut income tax rates for families and businesses and double the child tax credit, and also repeal the Obamacare individual mandate and make America more energy independent. Democrats were unified in opposition to the president’s tax cut and determined to stop it, but across the administration this fight had become a great unifier. We had a common goal to work toward and we all knew that if we could get it done, it would be a historic, legacy-defining victory for the president and unleash America’s economy.
As we closed in on the vote, our press and comms team worked closely with key administration officials and Republican leaders to aggressively make the case for the tax cut and hold Republicans in line. This would be a key test of whether the president could get his agenda through Congress after the failure to repeal Obamacare. It was a must-win. President Trump and Vice President Pence campaigned hard across the country for the tax cut, and I repeatedly made the case for it in White House press briefings and media interviews. As our momentum increased, so did the personal attacks against the president and me from liberals in the media. Criticism of me professionally is fair game and to be expected, but the personal attacks reeked of hypocrisy. Mika Brzezinski, the author of several books on empowering women and combating sexism, said on her MSNBC show Morning Joe that I was unfit to be a mother. On Fox News’s Laura Ingraham’s show I responded: “I think it’s sad that they’re attacking a lot of us while claiming to champion women’s causes and women’s issues,” and later added, “the president’s historic tax cuts plus doubling of the child tax credit will do infinitely more to empower working moms than liberals’ personal attacks on women they disagree with ever will.”
Just a few days before Christmas the Senate passed the president’s tax cuts with unanimous Republican support, and the president signed it into law. We celebrated at the White House, and American businesses celebrated by handing out Christmas bonuses to millions of their employees. We had finished the president’s first year strong, and despite some setbacks, it was clear the president had a lot of major achievements to be proud of:
✦ a booming economy;
✦ millions of new jobs & trillions in new wealth;
✦ lower taxes on families & businesses;
✦ repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate;
✦ greater energy independence;
✦ confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court;
✦ ISIS on the run and their caliphate in ruins.
The press never gave the president much credit for these achievements—90 percent of the media coverage in the first year of the Trump presidency was negative. The American people ended 2017 much better off under President Trump than his predecessor, but you certainly wouldn’t know it from the media coverage.
The annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, also known as “Nerd Prom,” has long been one of the most high-profile social events of the year in Washington. There were dozens of parties all over town hosted by media outlets large and small leading up to the dinner, and brunches the following day. The dinner itself included major reporters, news anchors, professional athletes, Hollywood stars, and too many politicians to count. In years past the president and first lady often attended the dinner as well. It was a must-attend event for the political and media elite. The men traded in their sports coats for tuxedos and the women were adorned with floor-length gowns, blowouts, and designer clutches. Held in the Washington Hilton Hotel, the purpose of the dinner was to raise money for the organization, present awards to journalists for their work that year, and give scholarships to journalism students.
In 2017 the president not only declined to attend the dinner, but decided none of the administration would attend either. The year 2018 was different. While the president still declined an invitation to attend and speak, he encouraged administration officials to attend on his behalf. Since the president wasn’t going I was asked to sit at the head table onstage as the official representative of the White House.
Even though the president wasn’t attending the dinner he graciously agreed to invite the journalism students being honored to the White House for a tour and to meet with him and the vice president. The president loved hosting people in the White House. He was proud of its history and the grandness of the building and grounds and enjoyed showing it off to people who otherwise might never get to see it. I personally worked with the board to make sure all the students were invited to attend.
In response to the announcement that I’d attend instead of the president, Michelle Wolf, the comedian invited to be the main speaker at the dinner, said, “So happy Sarah Sanders was finally invited to prom!” Later I talked to Margaret Talev, a reporter for Bloomberg who served as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, and said, “I appreciate the invite and want to come to the dinner. In fact I canceled on my annual girls’ trip with my best friends from college in order to make it. But if your featured speaker Michelle Wolf is just going to trash me and my colleagues while I’m up there onstage in front of thousands of people in the room and millions of people watching live on TV I’ll have to respectfully decline and go spend the weekend with my friends instead.” That year my friends were traveling to Asheville, North Carolina. Given all the stress and craziness of our new life in Washington, I had really been looking forward to a relaxing stress-free weekend with them and hated that I’d be missing it. Margaret said she understood and to let her talk to Michelle. Not long after, Margaret called me and said she had spoken to Michelle’s manager who reassured her it was not something I needed to worry about and that Michelle even planned to say some nice things about me. Despite Margaret’s reassurances, I had no illusions Michelle was going to be nice. Still, I had made a commitment to the president and the White House Correspondents’ Association to attend and represent the administration and I decided to honor t
hat commitment.
Bryan and I met up with several of my other colleagues at the White House to get ready and go to the dinner together. I was wearing a bright-blue floor-length Chiara Boni dress and my hair was pulled up in a low bun. Bryan looked handsome in his custom-tailored tuxedo and I thought we had cleaned up pretty well! We arrived early and made our way down the red carpet, where we stopped for photos and even a couple of on-air interviews, including with CNN. We went by a few predinner receptions to say hi to friends and right before the dinner started Bryan and I separated so he could take his seat at a table at the front of the room with the Bloomberg team. Margaret had invited him as their guest.
I arrived backstage for a reception for the “VIP participants” who’d all be onstage together just before the dinner was set to start. I hugged several members of the White House Correspondents’ Association and thanked them for having me. We all enjoyed a glass of wine together and took a couple of group photos as we waited on the other dinner participants to take their seats. Michelle Wolf came in the room just before we went onstage and I introduced myself to her. She was a bit cold. Her arrival to the small reception immediately changed the mood of the room. I wasn’t sure if other people felt it or not, but she was the outsider in this group, not me. I worked with these reporters every day. I knew if they were married, had kids, and where they were from. I knew when one of their parents had passed away, about a road trip across the country one of their kids had recently taken, and that one of them loved pottery and another loved flying airplanes. These were not strangers to me. They were people I knew well and for the most part actually had a good working relationship with and respected. But Michelle’s presence in the room took that comfort away.
Speaking for Myself Page 11
