MSNBC’s Jen Psaki on Sunday recalled being struck by the main thing that Hope Hicks wanted to know when she visited the White House with then-President-Elect Donald Trump after his 2016 election victory.
Former Trump spokesperson Hicks sat down with then-Obama White House communications director Psaki to talk about the mechanics of the president’s media team.
“And of all the things she could have asked us about, and granted it was two days after kind of a shocking outcome of an election, she had one major question,” Psaki remembered. Hicks asked her: “How do you get the president to approve every statement that goes out in his name?”
Psaki explained to Hicks how, “If we need a statement to commemorate, say, National Pancake Day, the president doesn’t have to approve it, obviously if it’s a more significant one, he does, he works with us on it.”
Hicks’ response “was interesting,” said Psaki. She reportedly said Trump “will want to approve everything.” “It made clear to me that when it came to all things PR, her boss was the definition of a micro-manager,” said Psaki.
“Fast forward to Friday and that’s exactly how Hope Hicks portrayed Trump” in her testimony at the presumptive GOP nominee’s hush money trial when, said Psaki, Hicks essentially depicted him as “obsessed and controlling when it comes to his media coverage” and said he was “very involved” with his 2016 campaign.
The takeaway, said Psaki, was Trump was “intimately involved in minutiae of his 2016 campaign” and “if he was aware of the small things, how could he not be aware of the big things” such as payments made to porn actor Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged affair.
Watch Psaki’s commentary here:
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