April Ryan - Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House

April Ryan has been a White House correspondent for the American Urban Radio Networks since the Clinton administration. In addition, she can be seen almost daily as a political analyst for CNN. She has been featured in Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Elle magazines as well as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Politico, to name a few, and has appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Anderson Cooper 360, Hardball, Meet the Press, and many other television news programs. She is the 2017 National Association of Black Journalists Journalist of the Year. Ryan resides in Baltimore, Maryland.

T hank you, God, for this incredible journey! I could never have dreamed what you have placed before me.

Mommy and Daddy, all I ever wanted was to make you proud of me. I hope you are, and I love you both so much! Mommy, I hope you receive that in heaven, and Daddy, I hope you feel that here on Earth.

Ryan and Grace. I love you to life! You two are my everything.

To my brother, Robert, thanks for always wanting me to go higher and offering ideas. Keep sending them.

To Ella, thanks for having that sparkle in your eyes about Aunt April.

Diane Nine, thank you for pushing me and making my book dreams come true.

Dave Smitherman, thank you for always being part of the team and for being a great sounding board and editor.

Audra and David, thank you for never letting me give up and telling me the magic is there. You have lifted my spirit in good times and bad. Thank you for your friendship.

To my family, thanks for the prayers and support.

To Baltimore and the Morgan State University community, thank you for the love.

To my close circle of friends and all of you who listened to me and cried with me over past last year, thank you!!!!

To everyone who offered your voice in this book, thank you! Your voices are needed for a time such as this!

To my publisher, thank you for allowing me to have another opportunity to tell my story and do it my way! Jon and the Rowman & Littlefield crew, thank you.

To American Urban Radio Networks, thank you for giving me this platform for the past twenty-one years.

To CNN, thank you for a great year. I am so grateful to be able to work with such amazing people who work so hard to get the stories right!!! No fake news here!

To Lafayette 148, thank you for inspiring me through fashion over the many years. I adore all of you! Much love!

To the National Association of Black Journalists, thank you for acknowledging me in 2017. You have been the wind beneath my wings during this crazy, yet amazing, year.

To all my ride or die fans, thank you for the support on the street, on social media, and anywhere you show your love. I feel it! It has been one of the factors that has sustained me over this tough period of time. On the darkest days, you find ways to pick me up, and for that I am thankful.

As I always say, dont hug me when you see me. Pray for me.

Be blessed and enjoy the pages.

I f you dont like something, change it. If you cant change it, change your attitude. Those words by Maya Angelou accurately summarize the political landscape in 2017. People are usually resistant to change, but not this time. The result of the 2016 presidential election wasnt simply about a change from the previous administration and its policies. It was a complete rebuke of the previous eight years of the Obama administration. The rebuke is where my story begins.

On January 20, 2017, at 12:01 p.m., the nation embarked on its latest untested experiment: a businessman with no governance experience assumed the highest office in the land, president of the United States of America. On the surface, people wanted something new, but what was the definition of new? What I discovered was that they did not know!

Both parties, Democrats and Republicans, and those on the fringes wanted a fresh face on old issues. They wanted change. That word had resounded in at least two of the most recent presidential elections. The hope for the next president was someone with new ideas, a new way to take on the established political process, a person with a creative approach to breaking the same old political cycle that left so many feeling that government was not serving them. In the minds of the Washington GOP establishment, better yet, the government elite, the election of Donald Trump was a bold move meant to quell the unending hunger to break the system. The nations appetite for change was palpable. From the onset, however, the GOP never welcomed the bombastic, at times sophomoric, business mogul who had captured the attention of the forgotten manyoung, white, rural Americans, predominantly males, typically without a college degree. That sounds so harsh, but it is so true. That demographic, that portion of America that had decided they had been overlooked during the Obama years, was the target for Trumps unconventional campaign. The strategy worked, and Trumps campaign hit a bullseye.

The Washington, D.C., establishment never embraced fully Donald Trump, not before the primaries and not even after the general election; they still havent. One of the main reasons for Trumps inability to assimilate with most politicians is his inability to take the spotlight off himself and shine it on the country as he should be doing. For example, on October 25, 2017, Trump headed for Dallas to assess federal efforts after Hurricane Harvey. Before boarding the plane, he talked to some members of the White House press corps. He proclaimed that he had attended an Ivy League school (Wharton). He also asserted that he is intelligent. Even though Trump was headed on a serious mission where people had lost their lives and livelihoods, he felt compelled to talk about himself.

Despite his business acumen and his education, Trump continues to come across as a bombastic, brash outsider on the fringe, not a true Republican. His brashness and the crude language and his simple sentences are how he had connected with the forgotten man; thats what they responded to. Trump supporters claimed that he was just like them. Somehow, this rich New York real estate tycoon seemed relatable to them, even though his life had been far from anything most of them ever experienced. Possibly because Trumps challenger was a Democrat and for the first time a woman who actually had a chance to win, his supporters were able to push all the negative aspects of their candidate aside. For these rural supporters, the closest they could likely ever come to the Trump lifestyle was by chanting their support in front of one of his hotels, unable to afford the overpriced rooms inside.

Many dont want to remember the truth, but Trump was once a registered Democrat who financially supported other Democrats during his early years in New York. How do I know? I saw it for myself. I was in New York in a beautifully decorated apartment in Trump Tower at a fundraiser for a then-Democratic New York congressman, my cousin Ed Towns. Not only was I in attendance for that event, but so was then-president Bill Clinton, who was hemmed in by Trump the entire evening. Those who had gathered and had financially supported my cousin waited and waited in line for pictures to be taken with their heroand their hero wasnt Trump, it was Bill Clinton.

Trump couldnt or wouldnt pull himself away from the charismatic ex-president. Trump continued with his long-winded conversation, oblivious to the line that had formed and the protests of others for him to wrap it up. They did not appreciate someone monopolizing Clintons time, even if that person was millionaire Donald Trump.