Trump's top aides, including one he fired, praise his loyalty

Donald Trump, as is well known, demands total loyalty from his subordinates. It is less well-known that he is extremely loyal to them in exchange, perhaps because he has fired so many of them, but it’s the truth, according to two former top aides who were interviewed by Yahoo News Chief Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff.

The two — former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and his deputy David Bossie — are the authors of a just-published campaign memoir, “Let Trump Be Trump: The Inside Story of His Rise to the Presidency.” They describe the president’s loyalty in glowing terms — notwithstanding that Lewandowski was fired during the campaign and that neither of them received the high-level White House jobs they were promised.

According to their book, Trump was angry over White House leaks to the media when he informed the pair they wouldn’t be getting the positions they had been told to expect — Bossie as deputy chief of staff and Lewandowski as a senior adviser overseeing political operations and presidential appointments. They describe this as one in a series of “What the f*** just happened” moments.

“I’m doing a great job, but my staff sucks,” the president said.

But speaking with Isikoff, both had only kind words for Trump, saying they have stayed in touch with him and that having been spared a grueling White House job means they have more time to spend with their young families.

Lewandowski said he still speaks with Trump “a lot” and that the two had lunch together last Thursday. He was fired from the campaign in June 2016 over what reports said were concerns he was not equipped to handle a national race against Hillary Clinton. Earlier, however, Trump had stood by him when he was accused of “a gross misinjustice” involving allegations that he had manhandled a female reporter from the Breitbart website. “Any other candidate in their right mind would have fired me on the spot and destroyed my life and my family’s life,” Lewandowski recounted. But Trump said, “I could fire Corey, but I’m gonna stand by him and make sure this incident doesn’t ruin his life forever.”

“And that is loyalty.”

Earlier this year Lewandowski was hired as a senior adviser and spokesperson for the pro-Trump super-PAC America First Action.

“We could work in the [White House] if we wanted to,” Bossie said. “At a certain point in time we could have. Today, I have no idea.”

Bossie’s loyalty extends to following Trump’s lead in backing Roy Moore, the Alabama Senate candidate who has been accused of sexual impropriety with teenage girls.

“I would,” said Bossie when asked by Yahoo News’ Michael Isikoff if he would vote for Moore if he could. (Bossie lives in Maryland, although he has a vacation home in Alabama.) “He’s been accused. A lot of people get accused of things that they’re not guilty of. I’m a little old school, I have a teenage daughter, almost another one, I have three daughters so I’m like a lot of dads, I think, it’s not a good thing to want to see happening. But we have to keep in context, we can deal with Roy Moore once he gets here, and I think the people of Alabama get to decide.”

Lewandowski also added that there should be a limit on the time and money spent on independent counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Both Bossie and Lewandowski emphasized that the charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn and campaign policy adviser George Papadopoulos were not for their contacts with Russia but for lying to the FBI.