Speaking for Myself

by Sarah Huckabee Sanders

  Marc, his deputy Mary Elizabeth, and I rushed to CIA headquarters at Langley, and the three of us along with Pompeo urged Haspel not to quit. After making our case, she finally agreed to sleep on it. The next day Gina called me and said she had changed her mind. She had decided to stay in and fight, and was ultimately confirmed by the Senate to be the first woman ever to lead the CIA.

  One of Pompeo’s first missions for the president as his top diplomat was to secretly fly to North Korea over Easter to meet with Kim Jong-un. The goal was to set the stage for a first-ever summit between the leaders of the United States and North Korea. After Pompeo returned to the United States, news of the secret mission leaked. The president called me into the Oval, and when I came in Pompeo was there. He held three photographs of him with Kim Jong-un. He handed them to me. We talked about their meeting, and I couldn’t stop asking questions. The president asked me what I thought, and how people were reacting to the leak of Pompeo’s meeting with Kim Jong-un. I told him that so far it was playing well and further demonstrated that the maximum pressure campaign was working. The president told me to release the pictures and confirm Pompeo’s meeting on the record with the media. Pompeo teased me not to lose the photos because those were the only ones he had and there wasn’t a digital file. I personally walked the photos to the Lower Press office and worked with staff to get them scanned and watched as they were distributed far and wide and started appearing on news programs across the country throughout the day.

  Following Pompeo’s meeting with Kim Jong-un, North Korea announced suspension of all nuclear and long-range missile testing ahead of the upcoming summit, and just a few weeks later, I received a secure call that I had been waiting on all day. It was from my colleague State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert, traveling with Pompeo, who told me their plane had cleared North Korean airspace with three American hostages safely on board and that Secretary Pompeo was calling President Trump now to brief him.

  The secretary called me immediately after he hung up with the president to relay their conversation: “Just wanted you to know in case the president tweets it.” I laughed and replied, “Too late.” During our call the president had already tweeted: “I am pleased to inform you that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the air and on his way back from North Korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting. They seem to be in good health. Also, good meeting with Kim Jong-un. Date & Place set … Secretary Pompeo and his ‘guests’ will be landing at Andrews Air Force Base at 2:00 a.m. in the morning. I will be there to greet them. Very exciting!”

  Pompeo told me the three male hostages had walked onto the plane by themselves and the doctors said they were in good condition. He joked, “I’m so tired they’ll probably be able to walk off the plane better than I can.”

  I hung up and issued the official White House statement: “President Trump appreciates leader Kim Jong-un’s action to release these American citizens, and views this as a positive gesture of goodwill. The three Americans appear to be in good condition and were all able to walk on the plane without assistance. All Americans look forward to welcoming them home and to seeing them reunited with their loved ones.”

  I went home and slept for a couple of hours before going back to the White House at 1:00 a.m. to ride on Marine One with the president, first lady, and National Security Advisor John Bolton to Andrews. There were more than 250 credentialed press waiting when we landed. The president, first lady, Bolton, and I went into the VIP visitor’s center and waited on Secretary Pompeo to come off the plane and brief the president. The meeting had gone well, he said. “Believe it or not, Kim Jong-un said he wants to come to Miami,” said Pompeo. “He loves the NBA and is a big fan of the Heat.” We quickly wrapped up and Secretary Pompeo said he’d give the president a deeper dive the next day. The president and first lady went on board the plane, met privately with the three liberated hostages and the doctors, and then they escorted the men off the plane and addressed the press. It was emotional to watch these three men who had been held captive just days before walking down the stairs of the plane into freedom on American soil and being greeted by the President of the United States. This was the most significant gesture of goodwill from the North Koreans up to this point. So much had changed since the president’s threats of “fire and fury.” The visual of the first freed American hostage throwing his hands up with peace signs as he stepped off the plane flanked by the president and the first lady demonstrated that President Trump’s maximum pressure campaign and unconventional approach to diplomacy was delivering results. The group took the last step off the plane and walked toward the media where they made brief remarks. The president said, “These are probably the best ratings anybody’s had at 3 a.m.,” concluding the joyous occasion in a way only he can.

  I returned on Marine One with the president to the White House and rushed to Duck’s Donuts where I picked up glazed donuts with sprinkles, Scarlett’s favorite, for her sixth birthday. I hung a birthday banner and finished tying balloons to her chair just minutes before she walked downstairs. We celebrated and then dropped the kids off at school. Exhausted and sleep deprived, I returned to the office to start another day.

  On June 10, 2018, we departed on Air Force One en route to Singapore for the much-anticipated summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un. Over the Pacific, we played spades and tried to lighten the mood. We joked about possible tweets the president could fire off to set the stage for the meeting. The president suggested “getting ready to land in Singapore. This is Chairman Kim’s only chance—he will either live or die!” but we all knew that given the high-stakes nuclear diplomacy, this summit was anything but a joke.

  When Air Force One touched down at Paya Lebar Air Base at 8:21 p.m. local time, Chairman Kim was already in Singapore, where he fit in a visit to a casino and nightclub. Kim was staying at the St. Regis and most of our delegation was at the Shangri-La Hotel—less than a mile away. The summit had already been carefully orchestrated and negotiated for months, but when President Trump realized that Kim was already there and we were going to have a mostly empty day he said we should move it up. I told the president if we did so, the summit would be broadcast in the middle of the night in America and few would see it. The president agreed to stick to the original plan. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

  As was customary when hosted by another country, we had a bilateral meeting with Singapore’s prime minister prior to the summit. I was part of the US delegation for that meeting. We covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time—the opioid problem in the United States and why Singapore didn’t have much of a drug problem, religious persecution, China’s growing power, trade, and of course North Korea. Prime minister Lee Hsien Loong had just met with Kim so the president was interested in his take. The prime minister said that Chairman Kim had been “chatty” and “wanted to make a deal.” He explained that he had recently been to North Korea and Kim was sensitive to the perception that international sanctions had weakened his regime. Prime Minister Lee had stayed in the same room in the same hotel as Secretary Pompeo during his secret mission to North Korea. Secretary Pompeo said when he was there, the hotel was empty. Lee said, “It was clean, well maintained, but very little traffic. At night it was the dimmest big city I had ever seen.” The meeting was interrupted by a large group who came in singing “Happy Birthday” to President Trump. They were very excited, but it was clear the president wasn’t in any mood to celebrate. He was ready to get on with the summit. We concluded the meeting and returned to the US Embassy.

  That night Pompeo, Kelly, Bolton, his deputy Mira Ricardel, NSC Director for Asia Matthew Pottinger, and I gathered in the president’s hotel suite to walk through the day and do one final prep meeting. Mira screened the video the president planned to show Kim in the one-on-one meeting following the leaders’ initial handshake. The video was highly produced and showcased the economic prosperity North Korea could achieve if they made a deal to denuc
learize in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. We knew that Kim loved Western culture, including movies and basketball. He was also very interested in developing and modernizing the North Korean economy. The president liked the video and agreed it was worth a shot to show it to Kim. We sat discussing the movements of the next day, and as we were wrapping up the president asked me how things were going. I told him the coverage around the summit was mostly positive, but lots of people still doubted anything would come of it. As we talked, former NBA star and Apprentice contestant Dennis Rodman came on screen on a TV that was playing in the background. We stopped to watch. Rodman was complimentary of both the president and Kim and said that if anyone could make a deal, it was Donald Trump. It was bizarre to watch Rodman offer insights on such a serious topic, but he was one of the few people in the world who had a relationship with both Kim and President Trump. The president turned to me and said, “Call Rodman and thank him.”

  We left the president’s suite and I announced the official schedule for the next day: 9:05 a.m. handshake between the two leaders, followed by a one-on-one bilat, then an expanded bilat and lunch. At 8:00 p.m. President Trump would hold a press conference. When I got back to my room, I called Rodman. I was told he was traveling but they’d pass along a message. I didn’t have much of an expectation that I would hear back from him.

  I woke up early the next morning to my phone ringing. I answered and sure enough it was Dennis Rodman on the other end of the line. I remember being careful with my words because I wasn’t sure how much of our exchange he might repeat later. I offered the president’s thanks for all he’d done and his kind words regarding the summit. He was friendly but not super talkative. Rodman said to pass on his thanks to the president and that he looked forward to shaking the president’s hand after the summit. I told him the president would like to see him once we were all back home in America. My call with Rodman was brief, and good thing I was careful with my words because I found out later he had a TV crew from VICE News in the room filming him and the phone on speaker during our conversation.

  Later that day Rodman went on CNN live from Singapore wearing a red MAGA hat and said he’d just talked to the president’s “secretary.” He was emotional, and said, “Obama didn’t give me the time of day … but that didn’t deter me. I kept going back, going back, going back … I showed my loyalty to this country and I said, ‘the door will open.’” Rodman started crying, tears streaming down his face: “When I said those things, when I said those d——things I got death threats … and I couldn’t even go home! But I kept my head up high, brother, I knew things were gonna change! I just knew it! I was the only one, no one would hear me. But I took all those bullets and I’m still standing and today is a great day for everybody … everybody! I’m here to see it and I’m so happy.”

  We left our hotel and arrived at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa Island. No one else was at the resort except those who were part of the summit. I went with Dan Scavino to the president’s hold room where we met up with Secret Service lead Tony Ornato and President Trump. We had a few minutes and everyone was a bit on edge as we waited. I told the president the shot was going to look amazing. Joe Hagin had done a great job putting it all together. The president asked if he had any missed calls to return. His personal aide Jordan Kareem listed off a few, including those of members of the House and Senate, but the one that piqued the president’s interest was from world-renowned golfer Jack Nicklaus. I suspect the president was looking for someone to talk to about something lighter than North Korea and nuclear armageddon so he asked for the phone and called Jack. They spoke and laughed for a few minutes like old friends do. We motioned to the president it was time. He told Jack he had to go, and said, “I’m about to do something big. Turn on your TV. You won’t believe it, and you don’t want to miss it.” The president hung up, stood up, and gave us a look like “Can you believe this!?” I couldn’t. Considering many Korean experts and pundits feared a war with millions dead just a short time ago, it was quite a turn of events for the president and Kim to be the first leaders of the United States and North Korea to meet. The president was ready, and we wished him luck.

  Both leaders were in place a couple minutes early and at 9:03 a.m. they both stepped onto bright red carpets and walked along an outdoor corridor, meeting in an open space against a backdrop of alternating US and North Korean flags. Every network carried it live, and millions in America and around the world tuned in to witness the leaders’ handshake and embrace. “Fire and fury” had been replaced by de-escalation and diplomacy. Kim later said it was like something out of a “science-fiction movie.” The two walked together, chatting briefly using interpreters, and then stepped into a doorway out of sight of the press to start their one-on-one meeting. After their meeting—during which the president showed Kim the video offering a glimpse of North Korea’s untapped potential on a preloaded iPad—they walked down the corridor again to shouted questions from the press.

  The pair went to the expanded bilat and then we moved to the working lunch where I joined the delegation. Our group included the president, Pompeo, Bolton, Kelly, Pottinger, Ambassador Kim, and me. The North Korean delegation included Chairman Kim and General Kim Yong-chol, who I had seen at the Olympics and who was suspected of being involved in the assassination—ordered by Kim Jong-un—of his own half-brother at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia in 2017. Kim’s sister, one of his most feared enforcers, was there as well, among other senior regime officials. Hoping to lighten the mood as we walked in, I joked to Pompeo that “I may be the only person at this table who hasn’t killed someone.” He looked around and said, “Yep, you’re the only one.” It was a bit unsettling.

  The president, always the gracious host, told the photographers to make him and Kim look “nice and handsome and thin.” The lunch consisted of a nine-course menu that included prawn cocktail, green mango kerabu salad with honey lime dressing, fresh octopus, soy-braised codfish, and braised short ribs.

  As the lunch was starting the president offered Kim a breath mint. “Tic Tac?” Kim, confused, and probably concerned it was an attempt to poison him, wasn’t sure how to respond. The president dramatically blew into the air to reassure Kim it was just a breath mint and took a few from the box and popped them into his mouth. Kim reluctantly accepted the Tic Tac from President Trump and ate it. I was seated to President Trump’s left with only General Kelly between us, and just diagonal from Kim. I spent a good bit of the lunch taking notes, exhilarated by what I was witnessing. The president was masterful at moving the conversation along and covering the key issues while mixing in topics of interest to Kim. Both sports enthusiasts, they discussed golf, women’s soccer, Kim’s favorite NBA basketball player, the late Kobe Bryant, and their mutual acquaintance Dennis Rodman, before continuing on to more pressing matters like the better future North Korea could achieve for its people if Kim agreed to denuclearize.

  At one point during the lunch as Kim finished speaking and the translator was conveying his message to the president, I looked up to notice Kim staring at me. We made direct eye contact and Kim nodded and appeared to wink at me. I was stunned. I quickly looked down and continued taking notes and for the rest of the meeting only looked up from my notes in the direction of the US delegation. I tried to get General Kelly’s attention but he was focused on the conversation. All I could think was What just happened? Surely Kim Jong-un did not just mark me!?

  When the lunch ended, our delegation moved to President Trump’s suite at the hotel. There was a general agreement on the signing statement between the two leaders but a few minor details were still being finalized at the staff level. The team went downstairs and left the president to have a few minutes of downtime prior to the signing ceremony. There was a small room attached to the signing room where most of the members of our delegation waited. Hagin and his deputy Patrick Clifton were arguing with their North Korean counterparts when we came in the room. Pompeo, Kelly, Bolton, Pottinger, and I
sat down. Bolton was angry and wanted no part in the signing statement. He didn’t trust the North Koreans and considered talks to be counterproductive. Nobody else on our team trusted the North Koreans either, but assuming the toughest-ever sanctions on North Korea remained in place, talks were better than risking an all-out war.

  There was debate on who would sit first and who, if anyone, would speak. We had a thirteen-member press pool and the North Koreans only had seven. We had been fighting all day to have all thirteen members of the American press pool included and the North Koreans refused to accommodate us because they wanted everything to be even. Hannah Salem, head of press advance for the White House for the trip, never let up, and eventually we just pushed all the American press into the room. Hagin and Clifton finally got agreement on the signing process and both translators agreed to the copy. We were ready.