Jordan - The Art of her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump

ALSO BY MARY JORDAN (WITH KEVIN SULLIVAN)

The Prison Angel: Mother Antonias Journey from Beverly Hills to a Life of Service in a Mexican Jail

Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland

Simon & Schuster

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Copyright 2020 by Mary Jordan

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition June 2020

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Jacket design by Jackie Seow

Jacket photographs: (Front) by Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images; (Back) by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN 978-1-9821-1340-7

ISBN 978-1-9821-1342-1 (ebook)

To Kevin, Kate, and Tom

DONALD TRUMP and his top advisors were gathered around campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks as she clicked PLAY to start a video on her laptop. It was late afternoon on Friday, October 7, 2016. In one month, voters would choose between Trump and his Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton. Trump and his aides had been strategizing before a crucial Sunday night debate in a conference room on the twenty-fifth floor of Trump Tower. But now they shifted into crisis mode and all eyes were riveted on the video.

It showed Trump and Access Hollywood host Billy Bush, nephew of the forty-first president, engaged in a lewd exchange on an NBC Studios lot. Nothing about the tape was flattering. After a voice offscreen said, Shes still very beautiful, Trump was heard boasting, I moved on her, actually. You know, she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her, and I failed. Ill admit it. After someone off camera says, Whoa, Trump replied, I did try and fuck her. She was married.

Thats huge news, came the reply. Then Trump again, I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, Ill show you where they have some nice furniture. I took her out furnitureI moved on her like a bitch. But I couldnt get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, shes now got the big phony tits and everything. Shes totally changed her look.

There was some back-and-forth with Billy Bush, including Bush saying, Yes! The Donald has scored. Whoa, my man! Then Trump said, Yeah, thats her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, Im automatically attracted to beautifulI just start kissing them. Its like a magnet. Just kiss. I dont even wait. And when youre a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Bush replied, Whatever you want, to which Trump spoke the now infamous line, Grab em by the pussy. You can do anything.

The room was stunned into silence.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie zeroed in on the videos date stamp: September 2005. Eleven years ago. That meant that Trump was not some young, single guy when he said these words. He was fifty-nine years old and had recently married his third wife, Melania, then nearly three months pregnant with their son, Barron.

Trump was quiet. Christie knew what Trump was dreading: facing Melania. She was the elephant not in the room, Christie said. Trump was so embarrassed that, as one person in the room recalled, He turned red; red was coming up his neck to his ears. I think he understood early on that it was going to create ramifications for him at home, too.

The video went viral, breaking online viewership records at the Washington Post. But Team Trump was focused on one person sitting more than thirty floors above them in the penthouse. They could spin and divert attentionstrategist Steve Bannon, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, and others were already formulating ideas for how to do thatbut if Melania walked out, the campaign was all but over. If she said she couldnt tolerate her husbands behavior, why should female voters?

Everybody was saying, You should go upstairs and see Melania. Why dont you go upstairs now and see Melania? And he was not rushing to go up there, Christie remembered. I said to him, It aint going to get any easier. The longer you wait, its not going to get any easier. Another person in the room said, That night he seemed frightened to go face his wife. It took Trump two hours to finally step into the elevator.

Melania does not yell or throw lamps. She shows her fury quietly and deliberately. Now you could lose, she said to him, according to someone who heard the account of what she told Trump. You could have blown this for us. Melania had been one of the few around Trump who had been telling him he would win. Others thought he would lose but believed the campaign would be a win for the Trump brand: maybe a new Trump TV network, probably more Trump hotels, and certainly more Trump merchandise. But Melania was a believer. Now she told him his mouth had jeopardized their chance at the White House. Trump apologized. He said he didnt mean any of that; it was just his shtick. She left him to stew and retreated to her own bedroom.

Several of Trumps aides said that Melania needed to be seen in public with him immediately. They wanted a joint TV appearance, where she would sit beside him and say that the words on the tape in no way reflected the man she admired. Some said that Ivanka, Trumps elder daughter, should join them, too, and that both women should look into the camera and say how much Trump respects women. Trump aides played the tape of Hillary Clinton joining her husband on a 60 Minutes interview when allegations of his infidelity arose during the 1992 campaign. They watched to see how close Hillary sat to her husband, what phrases she used to stand by her man. When Melania eventually joined the strategy session, she had a one-word reply: No. She said she would decide on her own what to do. And right now she was not going on television with her husband.

As Melania watched the nonstop TV coverage, she was particularly upset by how she was characterized. People said that they felt sorry for her. Poor Melania. That irked her. She was not fragile. She was strong and in control. I am putting out a statement, she said, according to Christie. I am not going to sit here and pretend that I dont have an opinion. I have an opinion and people need to know my opinion. The next day, October 8, Melania, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, and others gathered in the penthouse kitchen, where Melania told them what she wanted to say.

Trump didnt try to stop her. He just asked to read her statement before it went out. He understood that his conduct had put her in an embarrassing position and that this was not a woman who was just going to sit there and take it, Christie said.