The political neophyte frequently bucked his advisers' directives and ran a chaotic operation beset by constant petty rivalries and failures of communication. Frequently, the former reality TV game show host would go on a screaming, bellowing "all-out assault" against whoever displeased him.
“Sooner or later, everybody who works for Donald Trump will see a side of him that makes you wonder why you took a job with him in the first place,” wrote former Trump 2016 officials Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie. “His wrath is never intended as any personal offense, but sometimes it can be hard not to take it that way. The mode that he switches into when things aren’t going his way can feel like an all-out assault; it’d break most hardened men and women into little pieces.”
One particularly vicious blowup came when Trump learned during a helicopter flight that then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort suggested that Trump should do fewer TV appearances and let him speak for the campaign.
Trump ordered the helicopter pilot to decrease altitude so he could call Manafort on his cell phone.
“Did you say I shouldn’t be on TV on Sunday? I’ll go on TV anytime I g*dd*mn f*cking want and you won’t say another f*cking word about me!” Trump reportedly yelled. “Tone it down? I wanna turn it up! . . . You’re a political pro? Let me tell you something. I’m a pro at life. I’ve been around a time or two. I know guys like you, with your hair and skin . . .”
Lewandowski is particularly effusive in his gushing praise for his former boss, the Post said, calling the unhinged helicopter outburst, "one of the greatest takedowns in the history of the world."
Elsewhere, the book reportedly details Steve Bannon's machinations against Manafort and other rivals on the campaign and enlarges on Trump's reputation as a demanding, micromanaging boss.
At one point, Lewandowski was reportedly so ill that he couldn't stay awake, falling asleep during a campaign plane trip. He awoke to Trump telling him, "Corey, if you can’t take it, we’ll get somebody else.”
The book also recounts the president's bottomless appetite for junk food, a typical dinner from McDonald's consisting of two Big Macs, two Fillet-o-Fish sandwiches and a chocolate malted.
“On Trump Force One there were four major food groups: McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, pizza and Diet Coke,” wrote Bossie and Lewandowski.
The campaign plane’s cupboards were "stacked with Vienna Fingers, potato chips, pretzels and many packages of Oreos because Trump, a renowned germaphobe, would not eat from a previously opened package," the Post said.
The president is reportedly fussy about his meals and wants them hot and at specific times, making the task of planning them as much of a priority as all other campaign activities.
"(T)he orchestrating and timing of Mr. Trump’s meals was as important as any other aspect of his march to the presidency,” the authors said.
"In another episode, Lewandowski describes how staffer Sam Nunberg was purposely left behind at a McDonald’s because Nunberg’s special-order burger was taking too long," the Post recounted.
“Leave him,” Trump reportedly said. “Let’s go.”
And the group did.
