Speaking for Myself

by Sarah Huckabee Sanders

  The following day we stopped in at the Churchill War Rooms and had formal meetings, a press conference, and lunch with President Trump and Prime Minister Theresa May at iconic 10 Downing Street. With its unassuming black door and black brick you would have no idea that behind the door it opened up to an expansive space including the Cabinet Room, where we met with May and members of her team. As we concluded the meeting and walked across the street for the news conference, all you could see was press lining both sides and pushing each other to catch a glimpse of the president and prime minister. Prime Minister May’s communications director told me the number of press was abnormally large, in part because of President Trump’s visit, but also because May was about to resign due to her failure to move Brexit forward.

  That evening the United States hosted the reciprocal dinner at the Winfield House, the US ambassador’s residence. Earlier in the trip, the Winfield House had been the site of a nasty fight between senior White House officials.

  To prepare for every foreign visit we had daily operations meetings and briefings leading up to the trip itself. The UK state visit had lots of moving parts and one area of concern was that there would not be a presidential motorcade to and from most events, because the president would predominantly be traveling on Marine One. The UK security team was allowing one small staff motorcade, and based on their protocol they’d designated it for National Security Advisor John Bolton. In one of the prep briefings Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Walsh asked Bolton’s team to be sure to wait on the senior White House staff vehicles traveling to the Winfield House so they could be part of Bolton’s motorcade and avoid traffic. Bolton’s team acknowledged the request.

  As he did on many of our foreign trips, Bolton had a separate agenda and often arrived and departed on a different plane because he didn’t want to travel on Air Force One with the president and his team. Bolton apparently felt too important to travel with the rest of us. It was a running joke in the White House.

  As we were ready to depart for the Winfield House we loaded into a small black bus. On board were Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Senior Advisor Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor Dan Scavino, Walsh, and me. Based on US protocol, Mnuchin, Mulvaney, and Walsh all outranked Bolton. Mnuchin, one of the highest ranking officials in government, far outranked him.

  We waited at the hotel but there was no sign of Bolton or his motorcade. After a while we gave up and headed to the Winfield House to meet the president. While en route, UK police directed us to pull to the side of the road because someone was coming through. As we sat there waiting, we looked over to see who it was and sure enough here came Bolton and his motorcade. We waited and watched as Bolton sped by and left us in the dust. The discussion on the bus quickly moved from casual chitchat to how arrogant and selfish Bolton could be, not just in this moment but on a regular basis.

  If anyone on the team should have merited a motorcade it was Mnuchin, but he was a team player. Bolton was a classic case of a senior White House official drunk on power, who had forgotten that nobody elected him to anything. Often Bolton acted like he was the president, pushing an agenda contrary to President Trump’s.

  When we finally arrived at the Winfield House, Mick Mulvaney, typically laid back and not one to get caught up in titles or seniority, confronted Bolton and unleashed a full Irish explosion on him. He lit into him in a way I hadn’t seen him do to anyone before. Mick made clear he was the chief of staff and Bolton’s total disregard for his colleagues and common decency was unacceptable and would no longer be tolerated. “Let’s face it John,” Mick said. “You’re a f—— self-righteous, self-centered son of a b——!”

  That epithet really didn’t have much to do with the motorcade, but was the culmination of months of Bolton thinking he was more important and could play by a different set of rules than the rest of the team. Bolton backed down and stormed off. The rest of us looked on and nodded in approval, proud of Mick for standing up for us. Mick even got a few high fives from officials thrilled someone had put Bolton in his place.

  For the reciprocal dinner at the Winfield House, Prince Charles attended as the top representative of the royal family. When we were given our seating assignments for the dinner, I figured my seating assignment must be a mistake. I was seated at the president’s table directly next to Prince Charles. I couldn’t believe it, but was told the president made the call and insisted that I be at his table next to Prince Charles.

  When I was twenty-two years old and my dad was chairman of the National Governors Association, I attended with him the annual Governors’ Dinner at the White House. George W. Bush was president and his brother Jeb was governor of Florida. I was seated next to Governor Bush and he taught me a valuable trick. Most formal dinners like this one had a place card with the menu on it. Governor Bush told me one of the best things to do with the card is to pass it around the table and have everyone seated at your table sign it, so you’d always have something to remember the evening by. I thought what better table to do it at than this one with the American president and British royalty! I knew it was a risk as it was totally against protocol, but decided it was worth a shot. I asked one of the table attendants if he had a Sharpie, and he brought one back to me. I passed it around and it eventually landed in the president’s hands. He said, “What is this?” I told him it was a way to remember the night and everyone at our table. “Is this your idea, Sarah?” I hesitated, wondering if I was going to be in trouble. “Yes, sir,” I said, deciding it was probably for the best not to mention I got the idea from Governor Jeb Bush. He took out his own Sharpie, engraved with his signature in gold, and signed the stack of cards right in the center. After he finished, he handed the stack to Prince Charles. Prince Charles picked them up but without signing set them back down on the table next to me. I was disappointed but wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Your Royal Highness,” I said. “Would you like to sign first or me?” He looked at me and smiled. He picked up the pen and signed a couple of them, including one that he took and put inside his suit jacket pocket, and then handed one to me. His signature simply said, “Charles.” I was told later by members of his staff he never signs anything. I protected that menu card all the way back home, where it now hangs framed in my office next to a picture of me, President Trump, Prime Minister May, and Prince Charles toasting each other that night.

  President Trump didn’t have to put me at his table for the UK state visit. He could have put anyone more important there, but he didn’t. He picked me. He was like that more than he will ever get credit for, and it’s one of the things I loved most about the president. He gave me that seat just to make my day.

  President Trump was often generous and kind when the cameras were off. Many times I witnessed the president slip a waiter, doorman, or gardener at one of his properties a $100 bill, or several, when he didn’t think anyone else was paying attention. It took him months to quit offering tips to the Secret Service agents and military valets assigned to him no matter how many times we explained to him they couldn’t legally accept gratuities!

  I was once in the Oval Office dining room and the president asked me if I’d ever heard of the Christian group Point of Grace. I was pretty surprised. Not only had I heard of Point of Grace, they were friends of mine. “They have this beautiful song I heard them do on Fox & Friends this morning,” said the president. “Incredible. Really special. They have a great way about them, Sarah.” I told him they attended the same small college I had in Arkansas and performed at my wedding. He smiled. “Of course they did.” I found out later that he quietly sent them a $5,000 check because he thought more people should hear their music.

  If the president really liked you, he’d go out of his way to demonstrate he cared about you. The night at Winfield House was one of those moments for me. I believe that underneath the tough image he always wanted to project in front of the cameras there was a heart that genuinely cared.

  The next day we departed for Ir
eland, where we were scheduled to spend the next two nights at Doonbeg, the president’s golf club. I knew we’d have some downtime there, so I invited my husband to join us for his thirty-sixth birthday. I booked him on a commercial flight and set him up with a tee time to play golf at the president’s spectacular course set on cliffs over the Atlantic Ocean.

  The first night, the president invited a group including my husband and me to have dinner with him and the first lady at his lodge at Doonbeg. About ten of us sat there with him and listened as he told us stories about the property. He said that during World War II an American pilot had crashed his warplane into the ocean just a few hundred yards off the beach where a little old rock house still stands on the edge of his golf course. An Irish couple was having dinner inside, and when the man at the table noticed the plane crash into the sea, he ran out to the beach, dove into the surf, and swam out to the crash site. He pulled the American pilot out of the wreckage and dragged him safely to shore. The American was badly injured and the Irish couple spent months nursing him back to health. His family back in the United States feared the worst. He had been missing for months, and was presumed dead. But the American pilot fully recovered and returned home, and he came back to Doonbeg every single year until his death more than fifty years later to celebrate Christmas in that little rock house with the Irish family who’d saved him.

  After most of our table had finished their fish and chips with mushy peas—the president’s recommendation—and a pint or two of Guinness, the president told us to take a few golf carts and go explore the property at sunset. Somebody mentioned the pro shop was already closed, but he said, “Not for you it isn’t! Just tell them I said it’s okay.” He looked over at Bryan and winked at him. “It’s a romantic ride!” A group of us raced each other across the course, taking in some of the most beautiful spots along the coast. It was a blast. After dark, we went out to an old Irish pub in the town of Doonbeg and sang and danced as locals played music late into the night.

  The next morning a small group of us left Doonbeg early and flew to Normandy for the seventy-fifth anniversary of D-Day. Before the ceremony began, the president was scheduled to do an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham. I worked with her team and set it up to do it on-site at Normandy. The backdrop for the interview was row after row of perfectly distanced crosses marking the graves of the brave men who sacrificed their lives to save the free world. We were very tight on time because the event was set to start once the president arrived and there were thousands of people waiting. As the interview wrapped up I was disappointed that the majority of it had centered on the news of the day happening back home instead of the trip. When the interview finished, I stepped in and said, “Laura, could you please ask a few more questions about the event today and its significance?” The president didn’t seem pleased. He said, “You have never done that. We have done a lot of interviews, Sarah, and you have never once asked for it to go longer! Are you sure?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “We are at Normandy. This is the seventy-fifth anniversary of D-Day. We need less on Adam Schiff and the Russia witch hunt and more on our fallen heroes.”

  “Good. Okay, Laura,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Onstage at Normandy, the president addressed world leaders and American veterans who had fought there during WWII:

  We are gathered here on Freedom’s Altar. On these shores, on these bluffs, on this day seventy-five years ago, ten thousand men shed their blood.…

  Their mission is the story of an epic battle and the ferocious, eternal struggle between good and evil.… They came from the farms of a vast heartland, the streets of glowing cities, and the forges of mighty industrial towns. Before the war, many had never ventured beyond their own community. Now they had come to offer their lives half a world from home.

  This beach, code-named Omaha, was defended by the Nazis with monstrous firepower, thousands and thousands of mines and spikes driven into the sand.… The GIs who boarded the landing craft that morning knew that they carried on their shoulders not just the pack of a soldier, but the fate of the world. Colonel George Taylor, whose 16th Infantry Regiment would join in the first wave, was asked: “What would happen if the Germans stopped them? What would happen?” This great American replied: “Why, the 18th Infantry is coming in right behind us. The 26th Infantry will come on too. Then there is the 2nd Infantry Division already afloat. And the 9th Division. And the 2nd Armored. And the 3rd Armored. And all the rest. Maybe the 16th won’t make it, but someone will.…”

  Some who landed here pushed all the way to the center of Germany. Some threw open the gates of Nazi concentration camps to liberate Jews who had suffered the bottomless horrors of the Holocaust. And some warriors fell on other fields of battle, returning to rest on this soil for eternity … 9,388 young Americans rest beneath the white crosses and Stars of David arrayed on these beautiful grounds.… From across the Earth, Americans are drawn to this place as though it were a part of our very soul. We come not only because of what they did here. We come because of who they were.

  They were young men with their entire lives before them. They were husbands who said good-bye to their young brides and took their duty as their fate. They were fathers who would never meet their infant sons and daughters because they had a job to do. And with God as their witness, they were going to get it done. They came wave after wave, without question, without hesitation, and without complaint.

  More powerful than the strength of American arms was the strength of American hearts.

  These men ran through the fires of hell moved by a force no weapon could destroy: the fierce patriotism of a free, proud, and sovereign people. They battled not for control and domination, but for liberty, democracy, and self-rule.

  They pressed on for love of home and country—the Main Streets, the schoolyards, the churches and neighbors, the families and communities that gave us men such as these.

  They were sustained by the confidence that America can do anything because we are a noble nation, with a virtuous people, praying to a righteous God.

  The exceptional might came from a truly exceptional spirit. The abundance of courage came from an abundance of faith. The great deeds of an Army came from the great depths of their love.

  As they confronted their fate, the Americans and the Allies placed themselves into the palm of God’s hand.

  The men behind me will tell you that they are just the lucky ones. As one of them recently put it, “All the heroes are buried here.” But we know what these men did. We knew how brave they were. They came here and saved freedom, and then, they went home and showed us all what freedom is all about.

  It was one of President Trump’s finest moments, and I’ll never forget it. As we returned home from the UK, Bryan and I talked more about our future. I had served in the administration for two and a half years, and on the president’s campaign for a year prior to his inauguration as well. I was torn between my love of serving the president and our country, and my love for my family and need to spend more time with our young children.

  A few weeks before our trip to the UK, I’d boarded Marine One at the White House en route to Andrews. The president turned to me and out of nowhere said, “Are you running for governor of Arkansas?”

  I was taken aback. We had never had this conversation before. “A lot of people have encouraged me to run, but the election isn’t for a few years,” I said. “I haven’t made a decision yet.”

  “I think you definitely should,” he said. “You’d be great! I’ll endorse you right away. You will crush everyone.”

  I laughed and said, “Sir, are you firing me?”

  “I love it when my people do well,” he said. “I don’t want you to leave but I guess at some point I’m going to have to get used to calling you ‘Madam Governor’!”

  And as quick as he brought it up, the conversation was over and we were landing at Andrews.

  From that moment on, the president referred to me as “Madam Gov
ernor” in front of senators, governors, White House staff—even Prince Charles on the UK state visit. Upon our return to the United States, I knew the president and I had to finish the conversation he had started on Marine One.

  It was time for our family to return home to Arkansas. Bryan and I had prayed about it and were at peace with our decision, but that didn’t make leaving the White House any easier.

  I loved working for the president. The previous three and a half years had been the experience of a lifetime. I had traveled to twenty-three countries with the president on Air Force One, met with dozens of world leaders, spoken on behalf of our country on some of our most difficult days, and celebrated some of our greatest victories. I had done more than one hundred press briefings, thousands of interviews with every major outlet in the country, and for better or worse become a household name. I had the trust of the president, the senior White House staff, and my team. I was at the peak of my time in the administration and my career. The chief of staff as well as others had asked me to take on a bigger role, but instead I was choosing to walk away from it all, and for no other reason than to go home to my family. I’d meant what I said before—I loved my job, but I loved my family and being a mom more. Lots of people could be White House press secretary, but only one could be mom to my kids.