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Sam Nunberg
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Sam Nunberg
Former Trump Adviser
Sam Nunberg is a political affairs consultant who served as an adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
This interview was conducted by FRONTLINE’s Gabrielle Schonder on June 20, 2019. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Rejecting the Republican “Autopsy”
… So right after the “autopsy,” there are three gentlemen right off the Hill in the “Breitbart Embassy,” Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Sen. [Jeff] Sessions, who have sort of formed an alliance on the [immigration] issue that we’ve just been talking about.Can you help us understand their partnership in the moment you just sort of set up?
Well, I think that that partnership was extremely important in terms of taking a bill that had failed in 2006 and 2007, had failed at the end of the Bush presidency, which I believe that bill failing in 2007 was one of the reasons you had the rise of the Tea Party after Bush lost.
Totally. But stay in 2013.
I'm going to get to it, I'm getting to it. Having Stephen Miller, Steven Bannon and Jeff Sessions—I mean, let’s put out who they are.You have Stephen Miller, who is considered—I mean, I’d never spoken with him in 2015, but I’d heard from friends at the Hill—he was considered an outcast, somebody who, you know, was able to get a job technically in the Senate, but I mean, he came from [Rep.] Michele Bachmann’s office; Jeff Sessions, a perennial backbencher, somebody who had not gotten—not gotten one of the committee heads he should have gotten from seniority, was pushed out, somebody who was really outside of the mainstream, not only on immigration but on trade; and you had Steven Bannon, Steven K. Bannon, who’s taken over Breitbart by that point.Andrew’s gone.And—but he is someone who really saw, I think, also a great issue that got hits for him.And he believes in it, too.
And you had three people that I think were part of the impetus for that bill not passing.And anything and everything that came out of problems with that bill, anything that became talking points on conservative radio, were coming from Steven and put on Breitbart.And you had a transformation where conservative radio hosts weren’t looking on Drudge Report on what to say; they were clicking on Breitbart.And that is when Breitbart also became more powerful than Drudge at that point as well.It was because of that issue and the other cultural issues that they had—that they took head-on.
The bill also, at this point, you had Republican evangelical leaders out for the bill, [Sen. Marco] Rubio, the RNC [Republican National Committee].And this was the—I mean, this is the quintessential two-party duopoly in the Republican establishment here.And there was something that I think that Trump recognized when—the way you can communicate to then-Mr. Donald J. Trump, mogul, who’s splitting his time watching Fox News with Inside Edition and Entertainment Tonight at that point, was, “Look at the residents, the people, the Tea Party, the people that would vote for you, the populists, the outsider candidate,” which we were talking about in 2013, they despise this issue.This is—this is—this is like the Obamacare of last cycle.This issue is, “Don’t believe your lying eyes.We’re doing what’s best for you, and you’re simply not able to understand it.”So when you point back to that scene, that scene was set for somebody like a [Sen.] Ted Cruz to get the nomination.But it really became the—it really became a feeder for Donald Trump.
And one more time, help me with the—what did Breitbart, what did conservative radio hosts get, Mark Levin and others, that Fox did not see at that point?
… This was the old bill of goods being sold by quote/unquote “Tea Party candidates” of 2010.That’s what they got.Ted Cruz was thinking about voting for that bill.They got that this bill was something that the Republican establishment wanted to get passed, get it done, and get this issue out of the way for 2016.
Finding Donald Trump
… You know Bannon quite well.Around this time period, he’s looking for a candidate to run.
Right. And he’s even talking about Jeff Sessions, which would have been ridiculous.
Why would that have been ridiculous?
Well, I mean, Jeff Sessions, once again—let’s go back to Jeff Sessions.Yes, he runs unopposed in Alabama.… But he was not somebody who, from a national level, was going to be able to communicate the issue and take it out of the party.At best, he would have been—he would have been a one-issue pony in a large primary field, trying to drag one of the mainstream candidates or one of the candidates that had a perspective onto his side.
This issue, though, did become number two, when you looked at the most important issues to Republican primary voters.It became number two.
… Going back, though, for a second back to ’13, you know, Sessions, Miller, Bannon around this time are having conversations about bringing immigration onto the national stage and the way to do that.Their version of immigration, their sort of—some of the fringe talking points.
But—
Yep.
And here’s the “but.”… You’re talking about a meeting at the Breitbart Embassy during CPAC [Conservative Political Action Conference].I’m telling you, look at Trump’s speech in 2013 as well.That was a pivotal speech.And he—that was his.So you’re sitting with somebody who’s going to tell you I came up with the wall, and I did.The 2013 speech, that was his.That was a moment where he took this issue as well, and it was something that he naturally, through his own intuition, knew was going to be a great wedge issue for him.It was something that he saw that it was a fallacy what was being done, and his communications and his relationship he had built were previews in 2012, knowing the report. …
The Trump Campaign
… Bannon calls Trump the perfect “instrument” for running some of these policies.What do you—what do you think of that?
… Well, Donald Trump was always going to be a strong candidate.But he went from a novelty candidate, perfect place, perfect time, to a movement candidate in 2015.One of the reasons was obviously immigration.But it wasn’t the main—what immigration became for Donald Trump was it made him a political martyr and a leader, after his—after his speech.
Remember, he says—his comments in his speech, he goes off track.You know, he’s a little inarticulate.He says—and he says: “They’re bringing drugs; they’re bringing crime.They’re raping," or "They’re rapists.”And nothing—we didn’t really get a response to that until eight days later.… But it helps him rise quicker in the polls than we had forecast.
He went from a strong two to number one in the high 20s, to number one in a crowded field because of the immigration issue, from the point of view of, he was somebody who was showing leadership.He was somebody who was speaking truth to power on an issue where the vast majority of the Republican base and independent or nonaffiliated voters that couldn’t vote in the primary were on his side.His people, the people he understood, the Reagan Democrats, Catholics, they were on his side.Union rank and file were on his side on this issue.And he had conservative radio at that point.
Everybody else was playing the old game of checkers, not wanting to peak.Trump wanted to peak from the very beginning.If he didn’t peak, he would have been out at the end of the summer.That was originally the plan. …
Let me ask you right now, though, while we’re in the campaign, about the announcement that day, the rhetoric, the tone.You know, this is new language for a Republican Presidential nominee.Really, it’s striking.And I wonder what you know about the speech.
So this is somebody who is going to get more media than any other candidate has even gotten, he’s going to get more media.He’s going to get more national and international attention from his Presidential announcement, especially during—especially during the summer, when it wasn’t a high peak time of politics, he was going to have all the cameras on him.And what he had said to me early on, from his visits during his exploratory phase, when he had gone to South Carolina, when he had gone to Iowa, and he went to New Hampshire, was he said to me, “You know what? I'm talking about immigration. I feel it.”When I say the border is like a sieve, I feel it.I feel the power in there.And Sam, this is a movement.This is a movement. They get it. They get it." …
… Tell me about the [Laredo] trip.
… So the trip itself, you couldn’t have asked for something better.First, you have the plane, Trump Force One.You’re in Texas. You’re at the border.You’re trying to do more than Rick Perry the governor, who was running, who remember, in his run-up, was trying to run again after his failed run, he’s sending troops to the border, state troops, right?Simple answer to that, by the way, is what the hell were you doing the whole time until you were running for president, right?Why didn’t you do anything about that issue?
Let’s stay with the plane.
I’m staying with the plane. Hold on.That trip worked out because also, Cruz didn’t go.So Cruz couldn’t latch onto it as well.And you had the [candidate] being hosted by the mayor.It involved trade.You’re at the border.And then you’re talking about the wall, and you’re getting Trump to be able to get a—to look like a serious candidate already doing policy-type trips, information-gathering, information-learning trips and meeting with serious players including border agents.And this was something that was organic from the point of view of, once people had heard that the president was making the trip, we were then getting—we were then getting ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers who wanted to meet with him.They were told not to, but they came, rank-and-file ICE officers, around 10 or so, came at—came to the airport to meet with him privately as well and thank him. …
Nunberg and “The Wall”
Let’s talk about the wall right here, how that story—
So he had talked about building a fence himself.He had brought this up, securing the border, building a fence.Now, everybody was going to talk about building a fence, right?So let’s go—you have to do something that’s bigger, that’s better, that’s—that’s a novelty, that’s interesting, that’s exciting.If you wanted to get into the weeds and be cerebral and get into, “Well, I want to do both.I want to—we want to do fencing,” and then I forgot what the other phrase they used is, some places we’re not going to.Clean and simple.
And I’m sitting in his office one day, and I think it was early—it was late 2013, and he’s talking about the golf course.He takes a phone call.… He’s talking about getting the golf course done quickly and in time for the opening.
And from what I can understand, whoever is on the other line is saying: “Look, I don’t think you can open this that quickly.I don’t think—I don’t think you’re going to open this.Maybe you should push it back to 2016.”And he just says: “No, no, no, no, you don’t understand.Nobody builds like Trump. Nobody builds like Trump.This is going to get done.You’ll see.Come on. Come on, trust me. Nobody builds like Trump.”And he says it like four times.
And he hangs up the phone.So I said to him, I said, “Do you ever say that publicly, ‘Nobody builds like Trump’?”And he goes—and he goes: “I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.”I said, “OK.”But remember, I’m dealing with a candidate who’s telling me: “I’m not going to be told what to say.[Mitt] Romney was told what to say; he didn’t even know what the hell to do.That’s one of the reasons he lost.I don’t want to hear that.”So I’m dealing with somebody who I said— we had an agreement where I would give him—I called it “suggestions,” and the suggestions would be me taking—helping him market himself, was what I had said.“I’m helping you market yourself.I’m trying to sell gold in a different market.Help me help you.We have a different type of customer here.” …
I said to him after he gave an interview, and I think there was a headline in an article—you can find it in 2013 or so, or 2014—he said that he would build a fence.He would build a big fence on the border.And I said that—I gave him a call.I gave him a call that one day, and I said, “Let me get—let me shoot something by you.”
… So I said: “Well, why don’t we say you’re going to build a wall, because it’s bigger.You’re going to build a wall, and you’ll get Mexico to pay for it.People will love it.And think about it.It’s common sense. It’s common sense.Remember that big-ticket word we had heard from a lot of people: They wanted ‘common sense’ in their candidates.And remember what you said that day?”And he goes: “What?What are you talking about?”And I go: “When you said, ‘Nobody builds like Trump.’People are going to love this: ‘Nobody builds like Trump.’You’re going to build a wall.Everyone else is going to say they’re going to build a fence.They’re going to do—they’re going to do electronic surveillance, this one and that one.No, we’re going to build a wall.We’re going to wall the whole thing off, you know.‘Nobody builds like Trump.’It’s your brand. It’s construction.” …
So he laughed.And he did not necessarily say yes or no, because he’s not necessarily going to tell—he’s not necessarily going to say: “Good idea. I’m going to do it.”He doesn’t want you to get the credit.He starts tweeting it.… And come when he speaks at this event in Iowa, in January, it was the first time he publicly said, “I’ll build a wall at the border.” …
And I suggest the outline for him for his speech, which he would riff off of.… And in the sheet I think I may have put in big red, so black and red highlighting: “I will build the wall. Nobody builds like Trump.”And he said it.I didn’t know whether or not he was going to.He said it in Iowa that day, and the crowd went nuts.You can watch it.The crowd went nuts.
And I think that that was one of the things where he then started latching onto it, and he started going on about how the border is open like a sieve.… “You want border enforcement?You want—you want no amnesty?You want—you want the rule of law?You want us to just enforce our laws?You’ve got to go with Trump.Trump’s going to build that wall.”And the wall stood for a lot.The wall stood for who had the harshest, strongest, biggest law-and-order policy on immigration.And he took that issue from whoever was going to try to take it, whether it was going to be [Sen. Ted] Cruz or [Gov. Scott] Walker.
Trump Wavers on DACA
… They’ve now won.They’ve, you know—they’re in the White House.This is now the period of the early executive orders, the travel ban and the—and the others.There had been some talk, I think earlier, about doing something related to DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] in those early executive orders.Do you know why that doesn’t happen?Our understanding is that’s a moderate sort of camp of [Jared] Kushner and others who were saying, you know, “Don’t go too fast on DACA; hold—hold on that EO.”This is to rescind DACA.
… The moderates may have said, “Don’t go too fast.”But—but the so-called moderates, I mean, I think that some of them are liberal.But Kushner also was willing to just give DACA away through legislation, without getting border enforcement, without ending chain migration, without going to a merit-based system of immigration as well.It was terrible negotiating as well.
In terms of DACA, I was upset that the president didn’t rescind DACA at that point.And I talked to Steve about it, Steve and Stephen.I may have spoken to Stephen about it as well.They were certainly open to it.But the issue—the reason I thought you should rescind DACA as soon as possible was we get the Democrats quicker to the table.
Why did Steve and Stephen lose that fight? Do you know?
Do you want to know the truth?Well, of course you want to know the truth. You’re sitting here.Trump doesn’t support that.Trump—Trump wants DACA. …
When he had talked to me about it, when he had talked to Roger [Stone] and me, and he said: “Come on, guys. What am I supposed to do about this?”He said: “Come on. These are kids.They want to be Americans.They work harder than some of these Americans.They want to be in this country.What am I supposed to do?I hear from all the politicians, everywhere I am, they all tell me that these kids do better than regular Americans in a lot of ways.They do better in the schools than the regular Americans.OK, I’ve seen the stats.What am I supposed to do?”
And our suggestion was, don’t answer it. Don’t answer it.Say—say: “We’ll get to that, but first we’ve got to get to securing the border and ending chain migration.I don’t want to hear about letting more people in or keeping”—we’re talking about, “We’ve got to start keeping people out.”…
… The two meetings that Trump does in January of ’18 in the Cabinet Room—this is the “Dreamers” meeting.The first meeting is with Dems. [Sen. Dick] Durbin’s to his right; [Rep. Steny] Hoyer is to his left.It looks like he may do a deal with them on Dreamers.Do you remember watching this?This was like televised live on CNN for an hour.Tell me what you’re thinking when you were watching this.This was a pretty different Trump than you know.
Well, I’m thinking that we’re going to get played here.What are we getting? ...
I’m thinking, well, he doesn’t understand the complexity of all the issues, and he’s giving too much up too quick.The issue isn’t whether or not we do DACA.The issue is, what are we getting in return?He had even said to—he had even said to [Sen. Dianne] Feinstein he’d be willing to do a clean DACA bill, and he had to be stopped by one of the people in the room.He had no idea. He was just ready to do a deal for deal’s sake.And thank God, at that point, you know, ironically, you go—we’re five years later, from 2013—Fox News stopped the deal.
Conservative media pounds him in the ensuing days.Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Had to be done. It had to be done.Donald Trump needed a spanking from his friends at that point.He needed to be woken up.He—you know, he’s gotten better.But this also showed he did not take the presidency seriously.He doesn’t take—you know, he doesn’t want to go into the details on anything, and he doesn’t do nuance well.And he had to understand, … if you were going to give that card up, you’d better be getting a lot of chips back.You’d better be getting a lot of what we want back.That is—that is the one where yes, you are showing leadership.You’ll go against the party, but we’d better be getting stuff back. …
Zero Tolerance
… Let me jump to “zero tolerance” and family separation.
Yes.
When that—when that announcement is made by Sessions, is that the first time you hear of this plan, or were you aware of it earlier than that?
… No. The short answer is, I wasn’t aware of it until I heard about it.But the catch and release was the issue.Trump had talked about catch and release even while I was at the campaign.So catch and release was always something where we had to do—we had to figure out an avenue against it, a way to go around it, and this was the simplest method.… Well, of course, child separation, it’s terrible.The issue was using the Bible to—to justify child separation, I thought, was something beyond the pale and was really not going to resonate with the American people.
What did it tell you about Sessions?
He wasn’t built for that job of attorney general.That’s where he lost all sympathy.He was doing worse for the cause.And it really said that he was over his head.And he—and he was just in a terrible place.It was time for him to go.I went from somebody who said, “Well, you can’t fire Sessions because you’ll look like Nixon,” to agreeing, well, you could fire Sessions; just don’t fire [Assistant Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein.I think that that’s where he lost all—I think that’s where he lost support, because he was doing a disservice to Trump at that point and just made it worse.
I mean, the story is covered like crazy the next, you know—
Unfairly, by the way, falsely, and on the Time cover.
Sure. But, you know, it convinces the president he’s got to end it.
Yeah, the president was—well, he said also, the president publicly said Ivanka [Trump] helped convince him he had to end it as well.So look, I don’t know what the solution is, but we can’t just do catch and release anymore.This—you’ll hear from—you’ll hear from amnesty advocates 90 percent of these people show up to court.Yeah, right.The court system is overloaded.I mean, when do they show up?When are their court dates? Four years later?I don’t know what to do. It’s a terrible situation.
And the issue—and that goes to the broader issue of, we are in a worse place today on immigration than we were under Barack Obama.… Here we have a president who wants to end illegal immigration, who wants to secure the border, and it just shows you how broken not the immigration system is, how broken our government is that they can’t take care of this.I think the president can use this to his advantage still.I hear a lot; I’ve seen it, the focus groups.I’ve seen Trump people.I’ve seen focus groups consistently across different states.So it’s not just one focus group.I’ve seen focus groups of Trump voters.They were Obama voters who voted for Trump.They identify their number one issue as immigration—excuse me, their number one issue for Trump on viewing whether or not he’s an accomplished president, is, is the wall getting built?I’ve seen this.Now it will—some of it will go to the economy as well.
But what you’ll end up seeing this president do in the coming months, and especially in 2020, is giving rallies at the border, and I believe also giving a lot of interviews at the border, at places where the wall is starting to get built. …
And, you know—and effectively, the message, though, that family separation sends out is, don’t come here with your kids. …
We’re not welcoming for—now, on the other hand, here’s a point you have to look at this, Gabrielle.We had a caravan.The president said when that caravan was in Guatemala—excuse me, when that caravan was in El Salvador, “Stop that caravan.”They let it through Guatemala.They let it into Mexico.They eventually let it into the border.There is a problem when the president of the United States is publicly telling other countries—he’s saying it publicly; he’s saying it privately; he’s tweeting about it—“We don’t want you.Stop this,” and these countries don’t stop it, and they just let it get to our border. …
… Let’s go to the wall and the shutdown.I mean, you brought this up before.But, I mean, the wall hasn’t happened at this point.This is the shutdown point.The shutdown is something that the hard-liners are convincing him to do.Some of these—the moderates and the establishment folks are saying: “Don’t do this. Don’t, you know, take it this far.”He obviously finds that this is, you know, this is worth shutting the government down over.
The issue isn’t that he shut the government down.The issue is that he lost.And the reason he lost was because I believe he reopened the government just so he can give his State of the Union.
You think it should have gone on longer?
Sure.Or he should have just moved all the money from the Pentagon, from the DOD in the beginning.The way he did it as well, where he gets money from Congress, doesn’t get what he wants, and then he takes the rest of it that he wanted, makes it look unconstitutional on its face.So he had one or two options.He could shut down the government and then do—and then take the money from the DOD to secure the border at that point, and the Democrats can get away with funding the border by just putting the money back in the Pentagon, or he can just fold.But he did the—he did the worst of both worlds. …
… Well, and it now seems that they’re taking harder measures, right?You’ve referenced the purge at DHS [Department of Homeland Security].There’s also talk now about the roundups and the mass deportations.What does that signal to you?
… It was no coincidence that the president tweeted that the day of his announcement.That is an issue that he has to deliver on particularly to his base, which he has to secure where we stand now.The president has to use this year to secure his base so that he can then, next year, get that extra 4 to 5 percent, 4 to 6 percent he’s going to need.And he has to—and he has to, you know, to quote The Art of the Deal, he has to “deliver the goods.”So this is something where he will take the brunt of women not liking it in the exurbs and suburbs, and mothers, to trying to handle this, take care of this now, to making sure the last four or five months of the election are based on the economy.
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