Hope Hicks and other top staffers reportedly tried to set up a committee to vet Trump's tweets after he attacked Mika Brzezinski, but he ignored their input
- Former White House communications director Hope Hicks and other top staffers reportedly sought to vet President Donald Trump's tweets after he blasted MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski on Twitter.
- But Trump ignored the advice, journalist Bob Woodward reported in his explosive upcoming book "Fear: Trump in the White House."
Former White House communications director Hope Hicks and other top staffers reportedly sought to vet President Donald Trump's tweets after he sent a particularly inflammatory message about MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski.
But Trump ignored their input.
That bit was reported by journalist Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame, in his explosive upcoming book "Fear: Trump in the White House." Business Insider obtained a copy of the book, published by Simon & Schuster and set to be released Tuesday.
Woodward reported on the scene at the White House on the morning of June 29, 2017, when Trump fired off his tweet about Brzezinski and her "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough, a former GOP congressman. The pair had been supportive of Trump early in his presidential campaign, and were friends of his. But by then, they regularly admonished him and his administration.
"How come low I.Q. Crazy Mika along with Psycho Joe came to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me," Trump tweeted. "She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!"
Trump was widely condemned for the tweet, with Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine publicly criticizing him for the comment.
Inside the White House, Woodward reported that former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus described Trump as "going bananas."
By mid-morning that day, Priebus walked into the Oval Office where Trump was reading a newspaper, Woodward wrote.
"I know what you are going to say," Trump said to Priebus. "It's not presidential. And guess what? I know it. But I had to do it anyway."
Hicks, who was then the director of strategic communication, was, as Woodward wrote, "horrified" of the tweet.
"It's not politically helpful," she told Trump. "You can't just be a loose cannon on Twitter. You're getting killed by a lot of this stuff. You're shooting yourself in the foot. You're making big mistakes."
Hicks, former White House staff secretary Rob Porter, former National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, and White House social media director Dan Scavino proposed setting up a committee to draft tweets for Trump and vet any ideas he had for a tweet.
In pitching the idea to Trump, he said several times, according to Woodward, "I guess you're right."
"We could do that," he said. But he then ignored the process, Woodward reported.
The president would send out a follow-up tweet on Brzezinski and Scarborough two days after his initial snipe, saying that "Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people, but their low rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses."
Woodward also wrote that when Twitter later announced that the maximum length of a tweet would be increased to 280 characters from 140, Trump told Porter that it would be helpful for him to be able to more fully flesh out his thoughts, though he thought it was "a bit of a shame because I was the Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters."
Trump has attacked the book and challenged Woodward's credibility, citing a number of denials from top officials such as White House chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis, who said the scenes portrayed in the book are not accurate. Woodward has pushed back, saying the denials are being driven by political necessity and not the truth.
Here are more details from the book so far:
- Trump hits back at bombshell Bob Woodward book, calls it 'just another bad book' and claims Woodward has 'had a lot of credibility problems'
- Woodward's book reportedly spurred Trump to look to replace Mattis - here's who's at the top of that list
- 'It's either that or an orange jumpsuit': Explosive Bob Woodward book reportedly recounts Trump's lawyer's effort to keep him from interviewing with Mueller
- Trump denied calling Jeff Sessions - or anyone - 'mentally retarded,' but old records show he has
- Ivanka Trump and Steve Bannon reportedly clashed over proper White House protocol, and she told him 'I'm not a staffer! ... I'm the first daughter'
- Trump reportedly told Mattis that he wanted to assassinate Bashar al-Assad after his chemical weapons attack on Syrians last year
- Gary Cohn reportedly snatched documents off Trump's desk to prevent him from wrecking 2 massive trade deals
- John Kelly was reportedly enraged with Trump over his handling of Charlottesville, said he would have taken a resignation letter 'and shoved it up his ass 6 different times'
- Trump has reportedly said that his speech after the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville was the 'biggest f---ing mistake' he's made
- 6 alarming passages from Bob Woodward's book show Trump's inability to properly lead the military
- Trump thanks Kim Jong Un for 'unwavering faith' with his own White House in open mutiny
- Trump reportedly went to extraordinary and unusual lengths to console grieving military families
- Bob Woodward book says Trump offered advice to a friend who admitted 'bad behavior' toward women: 'Deny, deny, deny'
- Bob Woodward book: Trump told Gary Cohn he 'hired the wrong guy for Treasury secretary' right in front of Steven Mnuchin
- Bob Woodward's book lays out how one New York Times story changed the entire course of the Trump campaign