Former White House aide Cliff Sims has been all over the news for the last week or more with the widely-anticipated release of his insider’s account of the West Wing, titled Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House. The scandalous revelations inside the tell-all range from descriptions of Kellyanne Conway as a Cruella DeVil-type villain to bizarre details of Trump’s endless fascination with news chyrons.
But along with every book that’s come out so far during the Trump presidency that purports to give the juicy details of the inner workings of this presidency has also been the President himself’s strenuous and vocal denunciations of the accuracy of the depictions of him, followed by a standard “hardly knew them” disclaimer that, in Trump’s mind, works as a catch-all against anyone believing what the former insiders have to say.
That’s backfired on him hilariously in the past — Omarosa was clearly involved in a lot of White House day-to-day operations and Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff simply had too many intimate details of the West Wing that were later confirmed by others from inside to possibly have been some random guy the President barely came in contact with.
This time, however, is perhaps the funniest instance of Trump attempting to make it sound like the ex-aide was a “nobody” in that Cliff Sims has all the receipts. First Trump tweeted:
A low level staffer that I hardly knew named Cliff Sims wrote yet another boring book based on made up stories and fiction. He pretended to be an insider when in fact he was nothing more than a gofer. He signed a non-disclosure agreement. He is a mess!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2019
All the standard stuff, really, and we expect him to threaten to sue Sims any minute now for “violating” the non-disclosure agreement (that no President is allowed to require employees to sign, since they’re public employees).
But then Sims tweeted those receipts, and they were glorious:
“Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House” is out today, written by the most famous “gofer” in the world! Enjoy! https://t.co/Eovn8jMVhk pic.twitter.com/V013bIe0r2
— Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) January 29, 2019
Yes, that’s a picture of Sims, presidential binder in hand, walking in step with Trump outside the White House; Sims standing in attendance at a meeting of Trump’s closest advisors; Sims discussing what appears to be NASA policy face to face with Trump in the Oval Office; and finally, a personally signed copy of the New York Times cover story about the GOP tax bill from 2017, with the notation “Cliff, Great Job! Thanks, Donald Trump.”
I would be AMAZED if Trump’s “endorsement” on Twitter doesn’t shoot Sims’ book to number one.
Featured image via screen capture
