Inside Donald Trump’s Relationship With Hope Hicks

On October 2nd, 2020, President Donald Trump announced that he tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The 45th president and first lady Melania Trump became exposed to the virus after traveling to the first presidential debate against Democrat nominee Joe Biden in Cleveland. According to ABC News, the president and first lady traveled in close quarters aboard Air Force One and Marine One with Hope Hicks, one of Trump's closest advisors. Hicks began showing symptoms the day after the debate, and was among several Trump advisers seen not wearing a mask while on the way to the rally. Hicks reportedly quarantined on Air Force One on the way back from Minnesota. Before White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany revealed that she, too, had tested positive on Monday, October 5th, Hicks was one of the highest-profile members of Trump's administration to contract the virus. President Donald Trump and Hope Hicks have had an interesting political relationship. Before Hicks joined Trump's first campaign in 2016, she had zero background in politics. She instead was working in public relations and actually met Trump through his oldest daughter, Ivanka. Ivanka's fashion company was one of Hicks' PR clients at the time. It was while she was working for Ivanka that Trump decided to bring Hicks onto his political team, and she went from helping draft tweets to working as a full-time press secretary for his campaign. Hicks' relationship with Trump would then take a turn when she became the White House communications director after replacing Anthony Scaramucci in August 2017. She stepped down from the role in February 2018, after she admitted to the House Intelligence Committee that she sometimes told, quote, "white lies" as part of her job, but supposedly only about small matters. However, Hicks didn't stay out of Trump's political life for long. In February 2020, she returned to the White House to work with Jared Kushner as "counselor to the president," working on Trump's communication strategy and reelection campaign. Hope Hicks took a pretty conventional path to the Oval Office. She was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, and modeled as a child. She eventually majored in English at Southern Methodist University near Dallas, Texas. She then went into public relations, working for a firm in New York City, which did work for Ivanka's fashion line and Donald's real estate company. At a victory rally in December 2016, Trump described his first meeting with Hicks. As someone with no political experience before becoming president, it's no surprise that Trump was charmed by this detail about Hicks. She has been behind some of the administration's most notable, and controversial, stunts - stunts that, arguably, those with more experience with political optics likely would have shied away from. For example, the New York Times reported that President Trump's highly scrutinized photo-op in front of St. John's Church in the midst of a protest was Hope's idea. In 2018, Hicks was subpoenaed for a nine-hour interview regarding whether President Donald Trump was guilty of obstruction of justice. It was during this interview that Hicks admitted to telling "white lies" for the President. Apparently, she meant that she would lie about things like the President being in a meeting when he wasn't to get out of meeting with someone else, and claimed that she had not lied about anything more substantive. Hicks fared considerably better than many of Trump's other allies - like Michael Cohen or Rudy Giuliani - during questions like this, in large part due to her avoidance of the spotlight. When Hicks first exited the White House in March 2018, the Times reported that she had never given a single on-air interview during her tenure with the President. And in her role as Communications Director, Hicks also reportedly drafted both tweets and press releases, adopting Trump's unique communication style to do so. These qualities led her to become Trump's "most trusted aide," with her desk among the closest to the President's in the West Wing. Watch the video to look Inside Donald Trump’s Relationship With Hope Hicks! #Trump #DonaldTrump #HopeHicks