Washington: An upcoming book portrays a White House staff under President Donald Trump that was ‘absolutely out of control’ at times and often at each other’s throats, according to excerpts published Tuesday.
‘Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House’, which goes on sale next week, has been written by Cliff Sims, who served as a special assistant to the 45th President.
The ‘Washington Post’, National Public Radio and Axios published excerpts from the 384-page book by Sims, who worked on Trump’s campaign before joining the White House as director of message strategy.
According to the Post, the book features ‘expletive-filled scenes of chaos, dysfunction and duplicity among the President, his family members and administration officials’.
The book is ‘neither a sycophantic portrayal of the President nor a blistering account written to settle scores’, the Post said, and Sims does not spare himself from criticism, confessing to being ‘nakedly ambitious’.
“It’s impossible to deny how absolutely out of control the White House staff – again, myself included – was at times,” Sims writes.
The President cultivated chaos among his advisers, Sims writes, but he states ‘it’s dang near impossible to spend one-on-one time with Donald Trump and not end up liking him’.
The book recounts Trump’s reaction to criticism by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan of his handling of an August 2017 rally by white supremacists in Virginia.
According to the book, as Ryan spoke on television, Trump demanded that an assistant get the Wisconsin Congressman on the phone.
“Paul, do you know why Democrats have been kicking you’re a… for decades?” the book quoted Trump as telling Ryan. “Because they know a little word called ‘loyalty’. “Why can’t you be loyal to your president, Paul?” Trump said.
Trump was deeply suspicious of his own staff according to Sims. He describes how he once helped the President and his longtime bodyguard Keith Schiller draw up an ‘enemies list’. “We’re going to get rid of all the snakes, even the bottom-feeders,” Trump told them.
Sims describes conversations with White House chief of staff John Kelly, a former Marine Corps general who was brought in to bring order to the White House. “This is the worst (expletive) job I’ve ever had,” Sims said Kelly confided in him at one point. “It will be the best day of my life when I leave this place.”
According to ‘National Public Radio’ (NPR), Sims realised, after failing to secure a promotion, that his days were numbered in a White House rife with infighting.
According to ‘The New York Times’, Sims received a seven-figure advance from publisher Thomas Dunne Books for the story.
AFP
