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Corey Lewandowski
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Corey Lewandowski
Trump Campaign Manager
Corey Lewandowski served as Donald Trump’s presidential campaign manager from January 2015 to June 2016.
This interview was conducted by FRONTLINE’s Michael Kirk on July 9, 2019. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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The Trump Campaign
So when does Donald Trump, the candidate—maybe before he was a candidate, you will be able to tell me—start to pay attention to immigration as an issue?
You know, the first time I saw then-Mr. Trump talk about it was in April of 2014.He had arrived in Manchester, New Hampshire, for an event that I was hosting called the Freedom Summit, and it was comprised of most of the potential 2016 candidates.So Marco Rubio was there, Ted Cruz was there, and there were a bunch of other individuals.Laura Ingraham attended, Mr. Trump attended.And during his speech—he was given the lunchtime slot, and each individual on that April day was supposed to speak for about 11 minutes.And Mr. Trump was given the lunchtime slot.He was supposed to speak for 11 minutes, and he was supposed to run a video, and about 35 minutes into his speech, the giant red sign said, “Stop talking,” flashing red, and he just kept on going.But he talked about the issue of immigration there, and he talked about the issue of trade.And it was the first time I had ever heard him use the term “Make America Great Again.”
And so that was in April of 2014.And then I had very limited interaction with Mr. Trump up until January of 2015, other than just some back-and-forth and “Thank you for coming.”And so that was my first interaction with him talking about the issue of immigration was April of 2014, long before he was ever a candidate.
Do you remember what he said?
He said exactly what he said, you know, during his announcement speech in June of 2015.He said, “I’m sure there are some good people here, but we don’t even know who’s coming into the country.”And he talks about—he talked about a lot back then the desire to keep the people in the country who had gone to the best schools, the Ivy Leagues, the ones who were foreign students who were coming in and excelling in their American education, but because of the broken immigration system were forced to go back to their respective countries for a period of time, because they didn’t have a permanent visa to come in.And he talked about that in 2014.
So he was talking—you said he was talking about—his view of immigration was kids who were going to the better schools, then they have to leave, it’s not a good thing.
Yeah, it’s really a broken system, because our country wants the best and the brightest; that’s what we’ve always wanted.And so the immigration system, as it has been designed in the past, was something that he knew, as a candidate, was flawed.And he wanted, and talked about back in April 2014, the need to keep those kids who graduated first in their class at Princeton and Harvard and Yale and all of the great schools, the need to be able to keep them here so they can be contributing members of our society as opposed to forcing them out of the country.
In 2013, post-[Mitt] Romney’s defeat, as you know, Reince Preibus and the Republican National Committee write up the—what becomes known as the “autopsy,” this idea that if Republicans are ever going to win, they’re going to have to open up on immigration; they’re going to have to be softer, kinder, gentler view of it.I know that Sen. [Jeff] Sessions, eventually Attorney General Sessions, [Steve] Bannon, [Stephen] Miller, Breitbart, talk radio, all of them disagreed with that idea.What were your thoughts about it, and what were candidate Trump’s thoughts about the autopsy and that point of view?
Well, you know, I can’t speak directly for him on his thoughts, but I can tell you this: The autopsy was by and large a failure.It was a way to point fingers of why we didn’t win the election, other than saying we had a terrible candidate who was our nominee.We had a vanilla candidate who would say things that he thought people wanted to hear as opposed to a core part of convictions.
And so I think, you know, you can look back at the 2012 election, having a historic candidate like Barack Obama running for re-election and understanding how difficult it is to beat an incumbent president, particularly when he’s a historic president, the first African American ever to serve, and the rate of which he received the African American vote, and they turned out in record numbers.But at the end of the day, Mitt Romney was a failed candidate.He was a Massachusetts governor who didn’t appeal to middle America, who had no core convictions.And so this autopsy was a way for the Republican establishment to say, “Well, we can change going forward if we do what everybody in the media says we should do, which is go and pander to all these different groups.”And Donald Trump, and I guess to a great extent myself, never believed that.You know, I think the American people saw in Donald Trump, whether you agreed or disagreed with him, someone who spoke of his convictions and stood by them.Even if you fundamentally disagree with what those convictions are, he didn’t waver from those points, and on most occasions, he doubled down to make those points even stronger.
I don’t think there’s any candidate other than Donald Trump who ran in 2016 who would have proposed a Muslim ban into our country, because they—it wasn’t poll-tested.And the Republican National Committee would have poll-tested and said: “This doesn’t play well amongst one half of one-tenth of 1 percent of the electorate.Who cares about this issue?”But Donald Trump just went with his gut, and he spoke about things with passion and conviction.And I think the American people want a fighter, and they want someone who’s going to fight for America, which is a sharp contrast to saying, “Everybody gets to come, and everything’s free.”
Rejecting the Republican “Autopsy”
When—a bill almost makes it.Gang of Eight bill moves out of the Senate, lands in the House.[Then-Speaker of the House John] Boehner sort of puts it aside.[House Majority Leader Eric] Cantor loses.And when Cantor loses, after a force of right-wing radio and Breitbart and a lot of other people jumping all over him, that sends a signal to the Republican establishment, I think.Is that how you read what happened with the Cantor defeat?
Look, you have to remember, Eric Cantor was the senior-most Republican, I think ever, to lose an election in a primary.Now, look, we had the speaker of the House [Democrat Thomas Foley], who lost his re-election, if you remember, from Washington state many, many years ago, but that was a general election.And what David Brat did, the candidate who beat Eric Cantor in that primary, is he ran to Eric’s right.
David Brat ran a campaign as an economist, as a conservative, and as the anti-Eric Cantor.Eric Cantor became everything that was wrong in Washington, D.C.He became the establishment.He forgot who his constituents were.And most people didn’t give David Brat a chance, this economist professor from a part of the district that nobody knew.But in a primary, the conservatives showed up to say: “We’re going to send a message that we don’t want a pathway to citizenship for the people who are here illegally.We’re going to send a message that says fiscal responsibility is still important to us and that jobs matter and that we’re not going to pander to Wall Street.”
This wasn’t a 51/49 race; it was a decisive victory.And David Brat became the new hero, if you will, for a brief period of the conservative movement, and that gave rise to more people to run on the same platform that Brat had run on.
And that’s an anti-immigration stance and perspective, I think, that happened at that moment; that’s what it feels like.
I think that’s part of it, right? It’s part of it.It’s also about the fact that Congress is a big, bloated bureaucracy that really doesn’t get anything done.And when you’re part of the leadership, as Eric was, you are blamed, either rightfully or wrongfully, for the successes and the failures that go along with it.And many people believe that—and that’s why Congress has a 7 or 8 percent approval rating—that Congress doesn’t do anything.
When Donald Trump—he’s not yet candidate Trump, but he’s just about—when he sees what happens with Cantor, when he sees that the party, the sort of fundamental establishment part of the Republican Party might be squishy, how does he react?Does he know it’s almost a clear path for him?
No, I think he knows, when you look at it, that he is on a different path, a different trajectory than probably all the other candidates.And when you have a multi-candidate field like we did, 16 different candidates, you saw some running in the foreign policy field, and that would be a Rand Paul space.You see some running in the conservative space, like a Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, who had that conservative, Bible Belt mantle that they were running on.Donald Trump was running a nationalistic campaign, which was very simply, America first—not America alone, but America first.And everybody else pooh-poohed him as: “You can’t win like that.You are losing too much of the population because you have to be more inclusive, not less inclusive.”
So the Jeb Bushes of the world and the Marco Rubios of the world ran in the same path, if you will, the same lane, and there wasn’t enough space for those people.So we really ran on our own.And if you remember former governor Scott Walker, when Donald Trump pledged to build a wall on the southern border, Scott Walker said, “I’d better up him by one; we should build a wall on the northern border,” because he had to go and show that he was going to be tough on immigration also, because all of a sudden, for the first time probably since Ronald Reagan, we had a candidate talking about things that most Republicans didn’t want to talk about, which is the issue of trade, meaning fair trade, not free trade; the issue of immigration, meaning limiting the number of people coming in as opposed to open borders, because [Rep.] Paul Ryan and his cohorts believed then, and believe today, that open borders is the solution for America moving forward, and that’s a fundamentally different philosophy than what we believed at the campaign.And bringing Stephen Miller to the campaign—and I hired Stephen, who has now become well known for his hawkish views on the issue of immigration—bringing him on board in January of 2016 helped us to solidify Donald Trump’s position on the issue of immigration.And then you put in people like Ann Coulter, who, by and large, are a one-trick pony when it comes to this issue, and she has this microphone amongst her people.
And then Donald Trump did something very, very smart, which I don’t think other people realized.He started talking to the victims of people who were killed by illegal immigrants, the family members.And I remember going to California for the first press conference we did, and we did it with—Jamiel Shaw, and his—his son was killed.And we did it with a dozen family members.It was called the Remembrance Project.And we went out there, and during that particular press conference, the issue of immigration was just starting to really come to light.We had been out in Los Angeles.And one of the reporters said, “You know, you’re a racist, Donald Trump.”And Mr. Shaw, who happens to be African American, said, “What’s racist about standing up for my dead boy?”And that set the tone for the rest of the press conference, because what was going to be a very confrontational press conference on Donald Trump and race relations, or his stance on immigration, became family members who said, “He’s the first one standing up for us Americans.”And almost every time we traveled to the West Coast, he met with those people and spoke with them and heard their stories, and that further solidified his desire to have a legal immigration system that is going to benefit Americans and be punitive against those people who break the law.
Stephen Miller
Tell me about—you mentioned Steve Miller.Tell me about Miller.What did he bring to the table?When you first met him, what was his deal?
Well, Stephen was tenacious.Relentless, I guess, may even be more appropriate.You know, he would be the guy—at the time, he was working for Jeff Sessions on his Senate staff, and we were still a fairly young campaign.This was in late 2015, so Mr. Trump had officially become a candidate.And we were forming our immigration policy, and Steve was sending me emails at all hours of the day on different things, and I finally picked up the phone—I’d never met him—and said: “Hey, let’s talk.You want to write an immigration plan that I want to review. Happy to do it.”
So Stephen put together in his own time kind of a two- or three-page immigration plan.It was a hard-line immigration plan.We ran it by a few people.The president, then-candidate Trump, agreed with it fundamentally on every point.
What’s he like?
Steve Miller, he’s a smart guy—
But in those days?
Look, he was—he was very eager to be on a presidential campaign.He was very eager to join the team.He was always trying to reach out.And the fact that he was tied to an incumbent U.S. senator, of which we were running against many and had no endorsements of any, helped us to bridge that gap, not just with Jeff Sessions but also with the media, to bring over a policy expert to the campaign of which we were fairly light on.And so Steve Miller provided us the opportunity to bring a policy expert with significant Capitol Hill experience to the campaign, and a hard-liner on the issue of immigration, plus tied to Jeff Sessions from Alabama, who is a key endorser in the primaries.And it gave us the ability to bring in a person who was smart and understood at a conceptual level what the candidate’s position was on immigration.And it gave Steve the opportunity to leave the Senate and to jump on board a campaign, probably knowing that if he lost—if we lost, he could go back to Jeff Sessions’ office.
Sure, and he had a credential for the resume.
That’s right.
So he and Donald Trump, a mind meld?Was he—how was he with candidate Trump?I know he wrote some of the speeches, or at least drafted them.What was that like to see the two of them together?I’ve always imagined, especially back in that day, that it was—I don’t know, was it a marriage made in heaven or what?
Well, you have to remember, number one, Stephen’s a very good listener, so when the candidate is talking, the best way to fully understand what his voice is and what he wants to talk about is by listening and having conversations.And by and large, we didn’t use a teleprompter until probably May of the campaign.So it wasn’t that Stephen came on board in January and started writing the candidate’s speeches.The candidate didn’t have speeches.He had a pocket card with three ideas written down on it, and then he would go off and extemporaneously talk for an hour or 45 minutes.And because Stephen became one of the few people who traveled on the plane, and there was just a handful of us that traveled, you get to understand what the candidate wanted to talk about, what the important issues were.And then when we decided to—really when Mr. Trump agreed to go on to a teleprompter, that’s when Stephen, who had now spent hundreds of hours with us traveling, said, “Hey, I’ll take an opportunity, a shot to write the speeches.”
And some people have a very unique gift to be able to write efficiently and effectively, and he’s one of those people.He’s a very articulate, well-versed individual who can turn out a good speech that mirrors very much what the candidate wanted to talk about in short order.
The Snake
Can I ask you a question, which I’ve always wondered about?You know, “The Snake” poem, whatever that is, where did that come from?
That’s candidate Trump.And when he was going to take it out, we didn’t know.You know, we’d be on the plane, and he’d say, “Is tonight the night for ‘The Snake’?”And we’d have kind of an internal discussion, which would last about 10 seconds, and we’d either say yes or no, and he’d say: “I’ll put in the pocket.If I want it, I’ll take it out.”
Tell me what “The Snake” is.For people who don’t know what it is, what is “The Snake”?
You know, “The Snake” is this story of literally a snake that’s found in the garden, and a woman comes by and feels terrible that this snake is hurt, and decides to care for it and bring it into its house—into her house, and takes care of the snake and nurses it back to life only to ultimately be bitten by the snake and dies.And the woman asks it, “Well, why would you do this to me?”And he said: “Well, I’m a snake, right?And so you brought me into your home, and it’s hard to believe that you didn’t know what I was.I’m a professional killer, right?Just because you brought me in doesn’t mean I wasn’t going to ultimately revert back to my basic form.”
And he used that analogy very much for the issue of immigration, by bringing people into this country, whether illegally or inappropriately, meaning we haven’t done a good background check on them, and then them committing crimes, we should have known better.We are at fault.And candidate Trump, and now President Trump, talks about how stupid the government was before.And we’ve unfortunately seen too many horrific stories of people who have come into the country, either illegally, in the case of Officer [Ronil] Singh in California, or they came in legally on a K-1 visa or a marriage visa or something like that, and then they go on to commit a horrific crime, because at the time the government wasn’t allowed to check your social media feed as you came in on a K-1 visa.
And so we did not do a good job, and still don’t do a good job, of knowing who is in the country, what their background is, what their intentions are.And so that’s part of the reason, the rationale, where over the last two and a half years of his presidency, the issue of immigration and the wall are still paramount and probably discussed inside the White House on a daily basis.
It’s more than an election issue, a base issue; it’s something emotional with him?
It’s for the survival of the future of our country is the way he sees it.And I think when you get to middle America, when you get to Iowa and where I live in New Hampshire and places where maybe they don’t see the impact of illegal immigration as it relates to a cost on their services the way that people do in Texas and in California, people still understand what it means to come into a country legally, and we’re the only country in the world that still allows people to cross the border illegally and say: “Guess what? You can stay.”Can you imagine for one second trying that in Russia or Saudi Arabia or Israel?… And don’t forget, we’ve seen stories of American citizens who have crossed into Mexico illegally only to be jailed.And that was a case that took place in 2015.If you remember, there was a Marine officer who crossed into Mexico illegally, made a wrong turn in Coronado and ended up on the other side of the border.They put him in jail.
The solution from some of the people in the Republican Party is, you step one foot in the country of the United States, and you’re here forever.That’s not a solution.It’s not a solution that is viable moving forward.So I think the president sees this as potentially looking back on the historic record 30 years from now, 40 years from now, and saying, “We’re still the most welcoming nation in the world, but you have to come here legally.”
And I think when you take all the politics aside, and you talk to middle America, they say, “We agree with you.”
The Dreamers and DACA
Let me ask you about DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals], about the “Dreamers.”I keep reading, and I’ve heard him—I’ve heard that he said to [Sen. Dick] Durbin at the congressional lunch after the inauguration: “I really love these kids.I really believe in these kids.”And a lot of people we’ve talked to who know him say he really does feel an emotional sense of the Dreamers.How is he with that conflict?It felt like in September when Sessions came over and said, “We’ve got to do it; we’ve got to shut this down,” that that really put him in a tough place.Can you explain the president’s position on the Dreamers at that moment?
You know, he has a big heart; he really does.And he understands fundamentally that most of those children came here through no fault of their own, had no say in it.Came over as, you know, an infant or as a young child with their parents who probably crossed in illegally.And so he doesn’t want to be punitive against those people.
And look, they almost had an immigration deal done.There was some real consternation amongst conservatives, hard-liners if you will, saying: “No path to citizenship.You can pay your back taxes.You can be in line for 10 years.We’ll issue you a green card, but you don’t get to become a U.S. citizen,” because it’s the same deal that Ronald Reagan cut in the ’80s, right?We’re going to take care of all these people who are here illegally, make them all U.S. citizens, and we’ll never have this problem again.
Well, that didn’t happen is the problem.And so this president has been conflicted about those kids that have been brought here illegally, that basically this is the only country they’ve ever known.They speak English, even though they’re from Mexican heritage, or South American or whatever it may be, and he says: “What do you do with these people?What do you do with these children who are here?”
And now, while some are children, some are adults, right?Some of these people now have been here for 20 years or 25 years.And there has to be a point where you make a strong determination: There can be no more.And I think the first thing the president needs to do, in my opinion, before they make the decision on all the people that are here illegally and what to do with them, you need to have a process to prevent additional people from coming in illegally, because until you can stop that from transpiring, you’re just adding to a systematic problem that the best government estimates don’t know within millions of people how many people are actually in this country illegally.
So I think the first order of business needs to be building the wall, preventing the barrier, a partition, whatever you want to call it, that says, look, there is a way to come into the United States.There is a path; there is a procedure; there is a process, and you’re welcome to do that.You’ll still have political asylum if you need it.There’s still economic asylum.There’s plenty of reasons to come here.But until we have that, we can’t deal with the people in the country illegally.
And I think that’s the big issue with the president, is he doesn’t see a rational way, nor does anybody, that you can go out and round up 11 million people and deport them.That’s a complete fallacy, and anybody who thinks that that can happen is living in a different world.
You know him well enough to know that after the DACA thing happens in the fall and he then meets with [House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer, and he sends a tweet, and he says, “I’m with the Dreamers,” even though it’s been shot down, then the right, including Ann Coulter, beat the heck out of him.Then he’s got to be kind of back on because the base is being threatened and other things.How hard is that for him to go back and forth like that?What does that do to him, to be pulled back and forth, especially when it’s the right-wing media, when it’s Breitbart and it’s Coulter and it’s Ingraham and Fox?
I don’t think the president looks at any one media outlet or one story and say[s], “I have to change my position.”I don’t think that’s what he does.And I think fundamentally he wants to take care of people.That’s who he is as a person.He wants to take care of the people who were brought here through no fault of their own.And I believe that.
And as it relates to the political side of it, just the political side, it’s not like Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris or some other progressive Democrat has a plan that’s going to be better on the issue of illegal immigration.We know that their position is open border.So if you are an American voter, and this is an important issue to you, you really have a binary choice.You can pick Donald Trump, who’s trying to build a wall and come up with a solution which has now been a merit-based solution, or you can pick whoever the Democratic nominee is going to be who says, “Free health care, free education at the college level, and everybody gets to come into the country illegally.”So if the issue of immigration and specifically illegal immigration is important to you, you’re with Donald Trump 100 percent of the time.
So from a political side, I don’t think he is concerned, and should not be concerned, about losing part of the base to a different candidate on the issue of immigration.I just don’t think that’s a rational notion.There’s nobody who’s been harder trying to fix the problem from the illegal-immigration side.So I don’t think he has to worry about that.
Now, look, are you going to take some slings and arrows because you haven’t done enough? Of course.Can you always please people? Of course not.That’s part of the problem that presidents have.But I don’t think his base is going to go anywhere on the issue.
… By the way, how important is Miller in these discussions with him about policy?
Well, look, I don’t think any one person is the final arbiter, other than the president.And my experience with him over the last five years has now been he takes information from all sides, listens to every point of view, from family and friends to people in the government to people outside the government, and then he makes the final decision.
So Miller’s not the immigration czar for him?
Look, Stephen is a very capable, well-informed staff member who is in the room when decisions are being made.But at the end of the day it’s one person who makes the decision.And you know, I couldn’t point to a specific example of Stephen wanting to do something and the president saying, “No, we’re not going to do that.”But by the same token, I can’t point to a specific example of Stephen saying, “We must do this,” and the president says, “Absolutely, let’s not talk to anybody; let’s just go do it.”That’s just now how he works as a leader.
So important, yes.Czar? Only voice in the room? Absolutely not.
Failed Negotiations
So there’s an interesting moment that I’d love your intelligence on.On Jan. 9, [Sen. Dianne] Feinstein and others, Sen. Durbin, are in the Oval Office, are in the White House, discussing what to do about DACA, and he sort of says—he invites the TV cameras in, classic Trump, “Let’s do a reality show about this”: “All right, you guys, listen—OK, I like the idea of that.Write that up.”[Then-House Majority Leader Kevin] McCarthy jumps in and says, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute,” back and forth.You’ve seen this scene happen in lots of other moments, but it’s fabulous because we have it, and it’s on television.
Then there’s a sort of 48-hour period where, the way the story goes, Miller, [Sen. Tom] Cotton, [Sen. David] Perdue, others all say, “Back him off from this.”But [Sen.] Lindsey Graham and Durbin don’t get the memo.They come up with a deal.They come over to the White House.They think we’ve got it made with this guy; we’ve got him on the run.And boom, it’s a different Donald Trump sitting in that room.Tell me what happened.
Look, what happens in issues like that is we have seen the president sometimes be impulsive, make a decision on the spot.And when you’re in the world of private business, whether it’s real estate or television or whatever it may be, right, and you are the CEO of your company, you can do that with fairly limited recourse, other than maybe a bad business decision moving forward.And I think this president has relied on his gut on so many occasions that have really guided him well, by and large.From the time he came down that escalator all the way through now, he has been driven by a gut, not a polling president.But I think there are times where he wants to get something done.He doesn’t like the stagnation of Washington that he agrees to something, only to have the staff come back afterwards—and this instance is one of those—to say: “We can’t do that.Let me explain to you why.”
Because what happens in those high-level meetings traditionally is, the real work is usually done beforehand or after.And they get in the room, and they have a final conversation about the high-level things that they all agree are important to achieve, and in the room they say, “Yes, we all agree to these things.”But then when you actually go and try to implement them, the staffs are having conversations back and forth and saying, “Oh, we didn’t agree with that.”And then they spend more time with the president and saying: “Sir, Sen. Smith’s operation, or Sen. Jones’ operation, they’re being an obstacle on this particular case.We have to have this to move forward, so you’ve got to take a hard line.”
And so I think what you have seen in that particular instance is the president’s desire to get Congress to do something, but then finding out that in reality, there was nothing that was going to transpire because it was all political theater, and at the end of the day, many people want to use the issue of immigration for political benefit and not actually solve a problem.
He says the word “s—hole.”
True. He says a lot of things.
What did you think when that finally rolled out?
Well, look, I’ve been in a number of private conversations that—that is not the worst language I’ve ever heard or had it used on me.So look, if he would have said that about me, I would have taken it sometimes as a compliment.
But look, I think, again—sometimes I think the press plays right into his hand.They’re talking about what he’s saying as opposed to what he’s actually doing.They’re looking at the tweets and not looking at the policies.They’re looking at, you know, or listening to what he’s saying—but sometimes what he’s saying and what he’s doing are two different things.There’s a measured approach to many things that are moving forward.And I think, whether you agree or not, many people in America probably speak like that, particularly in the confines of their own home or in the privacy of friends or family, and say things that are equal or worse than that on a regular basis.
And part of the appeal of this president—I go back to what I said earlier—is you can disagree with his principles, but when he says something, the American people say, “I don’t agree with that, but it makes sense,” because he says it in such a simplistic way.And I think by and large that’s why he’s been able to connect when others like Mitt Romney, who speak in the vernacular of Washington, D.C., mumbo jumbo, people don’t like that.And Donald Trump is a blue-collar billionaire.He’s the richest guy in the room every time.He’s the richest man ever to hold the office of the president of the United States by a factor of multiple times.And they don’t give him the credit he deserves, right, because the way he talks.
But middle America, people that I grew up with in Lowell, Massachusetts, that’s how they talk.And you know what?You say the place is a s—hole, and someone says, “I’ve been there; he’s right.”Or the Ivy Leagues don’t appreciate that, right?The people who belong to the country clubs don’t appreciate that.But most of the time, you know, their holier-than-thou attitude is not very—is not very honest.
Family Separation
When the president sees the documentaries and the videos of the children crying and the separation at detention centers and all of that, how does he react to that? Does it make him—
Hates it. He hates it.I think what troubles him the most, and what troubles those around him the most, is this notion that he created this.That’s just a fallacy.He didn’t create the separation program.1He wasn’t the president who built the cages.All that occurred under Barack Obama’s administration.And there was no outcry from the media or the left that said, “This is inhumane treatment.”But all of a sudden Donald Trump has it, and they say, “Look at these children.”And we’ve now seen this on multiple occasions.The media is using pictures that predate his presidency and blaming him for it.And that’s how dishonest it is.
1
Look, I go back to when you get to know Mr. Trump, not the guy you see on television—the man who you can sit down and have a meal with or travel with or get to know on a personal basis, which I have and my family have had the opportunity to do, he’s the most gracious, self-deprecating, magnanimous individual you could ever meet.And I’ve heard these stories so many times: Somebody met him in a particular setting and he remembers it years later, because that’s who he is.And so when he sees these children who are separated from their families, nobody wants that.
I mean, if you look at how close the Trump family is, whether you like it or not, they’re an exceptionally tight group of individuals, from all the grown children to, you know, him.They weigh and make decisions as a family, so he knows how important family is.And to see what’s transpiring, that they’re being separated, is a tragedy.But we also know that many times, these coyotes are using children as a tool to come across the border.They have no relationship with them, and they’re using them just as a pawn in a very dangerous game.
Let me ask you a hard question.I have no doubt that he feels that way, and I have no doubt that he feels a responsibility to do all the things that he does.The theory of those tough actions started by Sessions and executed, to the extent that “execution” is the right word for it, at least pushed for by Steve Miller, they want to scare the hell out of people in Colombia and other places.They don’t want them to come up, so the harder, the uglier, the meaner it looks on television, in some ways—it’s a hard thing to say about Miller and Sessions—in some ways it’s better because it’s making the point.Would you agree with that?
You know, I don’t know, but I understand the rationale and the thought process behind that.These people have taken a 2,000-mile trek through Mexico and Central America, and we have heard the horrific stories of the sexual violence that has occurred, the coyotes and the way they’ve taken advantage of people, all because their current situation is so bad that these people are willing to risk their lives to come to the United States.But they didn’t seek asylum in their first country, and then they walked all the way through Mexico to seek asylum here.And so I think the horrific pictures that we have seen and the terrible stories that we have heard about should give pause to anybody who wants to make that journey, to say your life and your situation must be so terrible that you’re willing to give it up and separate yourself from your child for potentially the rest of your lives to make the trek to the United States.If that is truly the case, then we had damn well better send the United Nations and others into those countries to provide some humanitarian aid, because if that’s what the livelihood is like down there, that the only solution you see is to spend 2,000 miles walking in 100-degree heat to potentially never see your family again for the hope of coming to this country, then we have failed as a society.
Do you think this is the most important election issue, maybe the most potent election issue he has in 2020?
It’s the most visceral.[It] doesn’t mean it’s the most important, but it’s the most visceral.Look, I still believe that the economy is exceptionally important to people because it’s about their pocketbooks and is their family doing better today than they were three or four years ago?Do they have more job opportunities?
I think health care is absolutely important, the covering of pre-existing conditions and giving people the opportunity to buy their health care across state lines.And then world peace.And by and large we’re in a phase right now, with some minor skirmishes attached, but we’re in a peaceful state on our planet.We don’t have a lot of forward troops.We have some in Afghanistan, Iraq and North Korea, etc., but by and large, we’re not in the middle of a massive war.So I think those issues rank as high, if not higher, than the issue of immigration.
But I think the most visceral issue is the issue of immigration.I think it’s the one that causes the most fights amongst family and the political divide, because if your economy is good, and the guy at the bar says, “Well, I’m only making $9 more an hour, and you’re only making $3 more an hour,” so he’s buying you beers, right, at the end of the day, you’re doing pretty well.Maybe not as great as you could.Maybe the 1 percent is making too much, and you could have that argument.
But the issue of immigration is so visceral.And what we heard for too long—there’s no crisis at the border; the media said it.It’s a manufactured crisis.For days and months and weeks, there’s no crisis at the border.And Jim Acosta, the famed CNN journalist, went down and stood behind the wall and said, “I don’t see anybody coming across the wall.”Well, that’s because we have a big, beautiful wall down there.And only after did they start to say: “Well, maybe there is a crisis.Now we do have a crisis at the border.”
And so, look, I think it’s an issue that the Democrats are going to have a very difficult time connecting with middle America on, saying: “Illegal—we should keep our borders open.We should have more people coming to this country illegally, and once they get here, we’re going to give them free health care and free college education.”That’s a very, very difficult political way to try and win an election.
Leadership Changes
When he cleaned house at DHS [Department of Homeland Security], with [Kirstjen] Nielsen and others, what was that about?How surprised were you?How was it?
I wasn’t surprised at all.Look, this president is a man who demands action.And inaction, traditionally, has a consequence.
And is that what was happening there?
Look, I think he was not satisfied with the level of action that was transpiring.He talked about many times the slow bureaucratic process for everything.We want to build a wall, we have to post in the Federal Register for 90 days; we have to take 27,000 bids; then we have to go and vet 19 million people; then we’re going to select seven vendors; then they’re going to turn over their financials, and three years from now, if we’re lucky, we’ll put a shovel in the ground.He says: “Stop the madness.I want to go build a wall, OK?Streamline the process.” …
Was there something about her?
Look, there was always a knock that she was a Bush person; she was part of the Bush regime.You know, I don’t know.I think she was probably very good when she was serving with Secretary [John] Kelly at the Department of Homeland Security.It seemed to be that was really John’s forte.He was doing a strong job there, understanding—coming from Southern Command and understanding the triangle in South America, and she was a good chief of staff over there.I think it’s very difficult when you come to the White House as the deputy chief of staff and then be elevated to a position where really you don’t have a significant amount of experience.
It would be very hard, I think, for anyone in that position, but particularly someone who hasn’t had a law enforcement background at all or experience running a large government—I mean, the second largest government agency in our country.And so it becomes a very, very hard thing, and it is one again, what the media continuously focused on the mistakes that were transpiring, the inequities that were taking place.So I think—I wasn’t surprised that she was going to leave.
The word was, Steve Miller himself was unhappy with what was happening there and was certainly forcefully letting the president know how screwed up things were over there.
Well, Stephen injected himself into a number of dialogues directly with DHS, Department of Homeland Security, officials, not necessarily the secretary, but a number of people further down the list.And he was not shy about doing that.He did so with the full weight and support of the White House.
And the reason he had the opportunity to do that is because of really, [in] what is somewhat of a meritocracy, is you’ve been tasked to solve a problem, and if your job is the immigration person in the White House, then the president has given you the authority to pick up the phone and call the people that you deem necessary, not necessarily run through the chain of command.And I think Stephen was very forceful in reminding the president that some of the people who were over there weren’t executing the way that he wanted it to be done.
Between Sessions, Bannon and Miller, who’s the star who stayed and rose, and why?
Well, look, there’s only one still in the building, right?I mean, only Miller’s still there.You know, I really think Stephen has found a very good balance— of not doing too much television, but he does some.He does some on important issues, and he is a strong defender of the president when he is on television.And he has facts and figures in his head because that’s what he does every day on this particular issue that he can push back in a very aggressive manner to some of the questions which he receives and calls these people out, which I think the president likes, someone who’s fighting for him.
But then, you know, you’ll go weeks or even months without seeing Stephen Miller on television.Look, I think, Stephen and Jared Kushner were the two principals behind the new immigration structure, which is a merit-based system.But they took months and did enormous amounts of analysis before that program was rolled out.And I spent some time with both of them being briefed up on it.That was not something that was done by the seat of their pants.It was something that the president rolled out in the Rose Garden that had significant briefings done up on Capitol Hill prior to it being put forth, and a plan that is much more in line with what other industrialized countries have.
The Government Shutdown
Let's see what we missed if anything.I know you've got to go.
Just one last question, which is the shutdown:Are you talking to the president throughout the shutdown over the wall?
I won’t talk about any private conversations I’ve had with the president, because I just—as a matter of respect.But I think it’s fairly public that I had traveled with him during this period of time, and there was really two camps, one where the shutdown is helping you politically and one that says the shutdown is hurting you politically.
And as you remember, it was a transition period, as so many are at the White House, when John Kelly was leaving, Mick Mulvaney was named the acting chief of staff, and what was really transpiring, at least at the onset of the shutdown, was services were still running by and large.And the TSA officials who were working at the airports were still showing up because they weren’t sure how long this was going to go.
And what really, I think, was the inflection point to stopping the shutdown was when air traffic could no longer take off; when business people who make a living on airplanes, like myself, traveling, could no longer get to where they’re going, and you started—even if you’re a staunch supporter of the president, when you can’t make a living because 14 percent of the government is closed on this funding issue, you just want to see the government back open.
And so while I think there were people who were saying to the president, “You should keep the government closed,” I was not one of those.I believed and had relayed my concerns to staff that once the people like me who make a living in airports and fly for basically a living are such—impacted so severely that their livelihood is now at stake, you’re not winning anymore.
The president loses.
That’s right.
And does he know that?
Look, I think the president understood it.The president understands that long lines at airports aren’t good.You know, businesspeople who would fundamentally be with you, right, because they’re out trying to make a living and trying to earn an income can’t do that, can’t get to their meeting, can’t do what they’re expected to do.And I think the president understood that ending the shutdown was a very important thing.And I think—I think there were still people in the building who wanted him to move forward and keep that shutdown going, but they clearly weren’t impacted like everyday Americans.And because I don’t work for the administration, I get a 30,000-foot view of what’s really going on out there as opposed to being inside the White House bubble every day, where I live two blocks away; I have a portal service—Secret Service drives me to the building, and I go back, and the shutdown hasn’t impacted me.That’s just not what middle America has.
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