Former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus is providing a new behind-the-scenes look at President Trump’s private rants over the size of his inaugural crowd.
The episode provided a preview of the coming turmoil of the Trump administration, and instantly cost then-press secretary Sean Spicer a measure of credibility when he insisted Trump had the the most people watching his inauguration ‘ever.’
For the president’s first chief of staff, the whiplash began almost immediately – on his first day in office.
The president called Priebus on his cell phone to vent at 6 am after reading coverage of the inaugural crowd size in the Washington Post.
Reince Priebus, Former Chief of Staff to President Donald Trump, appears on “Meet the Press” in Washington, D.C., Sunday, Feb. 4, 2018. A new book describes President Trump’s tirade about coverage of his inaugural crowd size
Former chief of staff Reince Priebus is revealing details of the phone call where President Trump called him to complain about coverage of his inaugural crowd size
A combination of photos taken at the National Mall shows the crowds attending the inauguration ceremonies to swear in U.S. President Donald Trump at 12:01pm (L) on January 20, 2017 and President Barack Obama sometime between 12:07pm and 12:26pm on January 20, 2009
‘He said, ‘This story is bullshit,’ Priebus told author Chris Whipple, who is writing a book about chiefs of staff.
‘He said, ‘There’s more people there. There are people who couldn’t get in the gates. . . . There’s all kind of things that were going on that made it impossible for these people to get there,’ Priebus said, describing the tirade. The book was excerpted in Vanity Fair.
Then Trump started throwing out orders. ‘Call [Interior Secretary] Ryan Zinke. Find out from the Park Service. Tell him to get a picture and do some research right away,’ the president demanded, essentially telling Priebus to solve the problem.
Priebus tried to talk the president down, but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth trying to fight him.
Attendees partake in the inauguration ceremonies to swear in Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., January 20, 2017
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Priebus told him. ‘It’s Washington, D.C. We’re in an 85 percent Democrat area. Northern Virginia’s 60 percent. Maryland’s 65 percent,’ the former Republican National Committee chair tried to explain.
‘This is a Democrat haven, and nobody cares.’
According to the book, Priebus thought: ‘Is this something that I really want to go to battle over on day one? Who needs a controversy over the inauguration? …Am I going to go to war over this with the president of the United States?’
Spicer then followed at the daily press briefing with a quote he may never live down.
‘This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period,’ he said.
In this July 28, 2017, file photo, then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus walks to boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md
Trump himself was equally colorful on a trip to CIA headquarters. ‘We had a massive field of people,’ the president said. ‘You saw that — packed. I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks and they show an empty field. I said wait a minute, I made a speech. I looked out the field was, it looked like a million, a million and a half people, they showed a field where there was practically nobody standing there.’
The book describes a lunch Priebus had with former Obama chiefs of staff before taking over. The president gave him advice that Priebus was not always able to heed.
‘Every one of these guys at different times told me something that pissed me off,’ Obama told Priebus in the White House. ‘They weren’t always right; sometimes I was. But they were right to do that because they knew they had to tell me what I needed to hear rather than what I to hear,’ according to the book. ‘That’s the most important function of a chief of staff. Presidents need that. And I hope you will do that for President Trump’
Obama aides had spent months preparing briefing books for the succeeding team –not that the Trump team made much use of them.
‘All the paperwork, all the briefings that had been prepared for their transition team, went unused,’ said Obama chief of staff Dennis McDonough. ‘Unread. Unreviewed.’
Priebus, who has returned to his old law firm and still fields calls from Trump, made little effort to mask the chaos.
Priebus discussed his role for a new book about White House chiefs of staff
Former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus arrives for an event where US President Donald Trump will present the Medal of Valor to the first responders of the June 14 shooting against members of the Republican Congressional Baseball team, where US House Majority Whip Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, was shot, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, July 27, 2017
‘Take everything you’ve heard and multiply it by 50,” Priebus said. ‘No president has ever had to deal with so much so fast: a special counsel and an investigation into Russia and then subpoenas immediately, the media insanity—not to mention we were pushing out executive orders at record pace and trying to repeal and replace Obamacare right out of the gate.’
Steve Bannon said he couldn’t have been chief of staff because of the way he carried himself.
‘Trump looked around and I remember I had a combat jacket on and I hadn’t shaved in a week,” said Bannon. ‘I had the greasy hair [hanging] down. . . . I’m the senior guy—but look, it was obvious Reince had to be chief of staff.’