A new book reveals that President Trump wanted to find a ‘star’ to become his press secretary before settling on former Republican National Committee staffer Sean Spicer, who resigned having spent just six months and one day on the job.
‘This was television, the president-elect said, and it ought to be a good looking woman,’ wrote author Michael Wolff, in an excerpt published in British GQ of his new book, ‘Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.’
Among the women Trump flirted with hiring were right-wing pundits Ann Counter and Laura Ingraham, along with Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo.
President Trump’s first instinct in choosing a press secretary is that he wanted to find a ‘star, though people in the Steve Bannon camp suggested the press office should have a diminished role as the media was portrayed as the enemy
The president eventually settled on hiring Republican National Committee communications guy Sean Spicer to be his first press secretary. Spicer announced his resignation six months and one day after inauguration
When hiring a telegenic woman didn’t work out, Trump turned to Fox News host and Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson, offering him the job.
He said no.
It was then that the future White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus got his way and Spicer was given the position.
At 45, Spicer was well-liked in Washington, including by many journalists he would later berate in the briefing room.
He had been the top communications guy at Priebus’ Republican National Committee and had aided the Trump campaign in its win.
Spicer, however was reluctant to take the press secretary job.
‘If I do this, will I ever be able to work again?’ he asked friends around the ‘Washington swamp,’ the book alleged.
‘Fire and Fury’ also suggested that not everyone in Trump’s orbit believed the press operation should be a big deal, with ‘Bannonism’ dictating that reporters shouldn’t be pandered to, as they were the enemy.
However, the president, a former reality TV star, couldn’t stop watching Spicer’s briefings.
‘Trump’s pressure on Spicer – a constant stream of directorial castigation and instruction that reliably rattled the press secretary – helped turn the briefings into a can’t-miss train wreck,’ Wolff wrote.
President Trump offered the press secretary gig to Tucker Carlson, who has a show on Fox News and founded the Daily Caller. Michael Wolff’s book says Carlson turned the job down
President Trump had assumed his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway would become his press secretary, but she wanted a different role, and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner didn’t care of her on-air appearances, giving her the nickname ‘nails,’ for her manicure
The author also talked about the aide who Trump presumed would become his press secretary before she bartered for another White House job: his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway.
‘He and my mother, because they both watch a lot of television, thought this was one of the most important jobs,’ Conway said.
The aide, however, wanted more; while other Trump allies, including the president’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kusher, didn’t want to see a lot of Conway on the air.
Wolff wrote that Conway ‘had pushed the boundaries of loyalty too far’ she was so hyperbolic that even Trump loyalists found her behavior extreme and were repelled.’
‘None were more put off than Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, who, appalled at the shamelessness of her television appearances, extended this into a larger critique of Conway’s vulgarity,’ he continued.
‘When referring to her, they were particularly partial to using the shorthand “nails,” a reference to her Cruella de Vil-length manicure treatments,’ he said.