US President Donald Trump's first chief of staff says all those reports about chaos in the early days of the Trump White House were true - and then some.
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"Take everything you've heard and multiply it by 50," Reince Priebus said, according to an updated book to be published next month about White House chiefs of staff.
In an adaptation from the next edition of the book, "The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency," Chris Whipple writes in Vanity Fair about a showdown that nearly led to the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions last May after the president berated him for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Trump campaign contacts with Russia.
Whipple recounts Priebus' tale of getting a panicked visit from White House counsel Don McGahn.
As Priebus told it: "Don McGahn came in my office pretty hot, red, out of breath, and said, 'We've got a problem.' I responded, 'What?' And he said, 'Well, we just got a special counsel, and (Attorney General Jeff) Sessions just resigned.' I said, 'What!? What the hell are you talking about?'?"
Priebus said he dashed out to the White House parking lot to coax Sessions back into the White House.
Preibus said he dragged Sessions back to his office where he, Vice President Mike Pence and presidential adviser Steve Bannon persuaded him not to resign right then but instead to think about it.
Whipple writes that Sessions did later deliver a resignation letter to the Oval Office, but Priebus persuaded Trump to give it back.
Priebus also is quoted about his unsuccessful campaign to rein in Trump's tweets.
"The team would give the president five or six tweets every day to choose from," said Priebus.
"The idea would be at least they would be tweets that we could see and understand and control. But that didn't allow the president to be fully in control of his own voice. Everybody tried at different times to cool down the Twitter habit - but no one could do it."
Priebus was ousted by Trump last July and replaced by retired General John Kelly, whose own job security is now in doubt as Trump complains about Kelly's handling of allegations of domestic abuse by top aide Rob Porter. Porter resigned last week.
For all the tumult of his days with Trump, Priebus told Whipple, "I still love the guy."
Australian Associated Press
