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Meet Hope Hicks, the woman who 'totally understands' Donald Trump

 
Hope Hicks, the press secretary for Donald Trump'9s presidential campaign, stands at a news conference at Trump Tower in New York in May. Hicks had never worked in politics before last year. Now she plays confidante and sometime gatekeeper to the presumptive Republican nominee for president and, improbably, serves as Trump's sole liaison to the teeming national press corps. [Damon Winter | New York Times]
Hope Hicks, the press secretary for Donald Trump'9s presidential campaign, stands at a news conference at Trump Tower in New York in May. Hicks had never worked in politics before last year. Now she plays confidante and sometime gatekeeper to the presumptive Republican nominee for president and, improbably, serves as Trump's sole liaison to the teeming national press corps. [Damon Winter | New York Times]
Published June 27, 2016

An inspirational poster hangs above the Trump Tower desk of Hope Hicks, the 27-year-old press secretary for Donald Trump's presidential campaign, squeezed in among the framed Time magazine covers of Trump and exuberant thank-you notes written in his inimitable scrawl ("Hopie — You're the greatest!").

"Fate whispers to the warrior, 'You cannot withstand the storm,' " it reads. "And the warrior whispers back, 'I am the storm.' "

Hicks, a onetime champion lacrosse player who signed a Ford modeling contract as a teenager, had never worked in politics before last year, and her widest exposure had been as a co-star in a Nickelodeon children's television special about golf.

Now she plays confidante and sometime gatekeeper to the presumptive Republican nominee for president and, improbably, serves as Trump's sole liaison to the teeming national press corps.

Hillary Clinton employs a half-dozen battle-hardened media handlers who field hundreds of daily requests. Trump has Hicks, who was working for his daughter Ivanka's luxury lines and for the Trump real estate brand when the candidate called her to his office in early 2015 and declared that she was joining his campaign.

"Mr. Trump sat her down and said, 'This is your new job,' " said her mother, Caye Cavender Hicks. "It was a shocker."

Hope Hicks had trained at Hiltzik Strategies, the powerful public relations firm that represents Hollywood clients and corporate executives, before Ivanka Trump brought her in-house. She was commuting from an apartment she shared with her sister in Greenwich, Conn., above the dive bar where her father had his first beer at 18.

Suddenly, she found herself a near-constant presence by Trump's side, flying in his jet, living rent-free in a Trump-owned apartment and attending to his mercurial moods.

She is arguably the least credentialed press secretary in the modern history of presidential politics. But for journalists who cover the campaign, she is sometimes the Jekyll to Trump's Hyde, emailing angry complaints from her media-bashing boss ("dishonest") and often concluding with her own polite signoff: "Best, Hope."

Seemingly unfazed by her boss' outbursts, she can detect the best moments for reporters to make requests — knowing, for instance, not to bother Trump while he is watching a major golf tournament.

"Her most important role is her bond with the candidate," said Paul Manafort, a veteran Republican adviser who, as of last week, had been put in charge of the campaign. "She totally understands him."

Or, as Ivanka Trump said in an interview: "My father makes people earn his trust. She's earned his trust."

And not without some steeliness. Hicks remained in her role last week even as Trump fired Corey Lewandowski, his campaign manager and another early member of his team.

Lewandowski and Hicks are close friends: He has visited her family in Greenwich for pick-me-up dinners and, days after Trump clinched the Republican nomination (and fired a key political aide), they took in a Hall & Oates concert with her parents in the VIP tent at the Greenwich Town Party.

But it was ultimately Hicks who announced Lewandowski's departure, describing it as "a parting of ways."

Friends of Hicks say they are thrilled by her sudden rise, dismissing concerns that her ties to Trump could damage her nascent career. "She believes in him, his leadership and abilities, and she's thrown herself completely into this," said Michael Feldman, a prominent Democratic strategist and family friend. "I don't think that ties her personally to everything that's been said."

But some say they are alarmed that Hicks is promoting, and defending, a candidate who has been denounced as a demagogue, a racist, a misogynist and even a fascist. In Greenwich, where her family is part of the civic firmament, the topic of her association with Trump can get touchy.

"Believe me, there are times when I would like to voice my opinion," said Drew Marzullo, a Greenwich town selectman and Democrat who is close with Hicks' sister, Mary Grace. He recalled doing a double take after spotting Lewandowski and other Trump aides with the family at the Hall & Oates concert.

Still, he added, "It would be unfair for someone to judge Hope or the family based on her job."

In fact, Hicks is the third generation of her family to represent a powerful but highly controversial client. Her grandfather led public relations for Texaco during the 1970s oil crisis.

Her father, Paul B. Hicks III, represented a major tobacco company in Connecticut and later was the top communications executive for the National Football League, where he dealt with scandals over player safety and the Patriots' deflated footballs.

Her establishment pedigree aside, Hicks does not fit the part of the typical campaign press secretary, spinning reporters and gossiping over expensed drinks on the trail. Among journalists, Hicks is not known to wrangle, cajole or mingle, serving as more of a conduit for her intensely media-savvy boss, who likes to act as his own chief spokesman.

Unlike her Clinton counterparts, who take pains to shape their candidate's image, Hicks is not active on Twitter and does not show up on cable talk shows. Contacted for this article, she declined to be interviewed, insisting that she did not want to draw attention away from her candidate.

Reporters praise Hicks for her poise amid a chaotic campaign. But some say that she can be unresponsive to questions, a habit so pervasive that it spawned a mocking, anonymous Twitter account, @HicksNoComment. Political reporters say Hicks rarely interacts with them at rallies, preferring to communicate by text or telephone.

Hicks — perhaps the only campaign press secretary to have been photographed as a teenager by fashion photographer Bruce Weber, in a campaign for Naturalizer shoes — favors Burberry trench coats and heels, a break from the scruffy ranks of harried campaign operatives. One reporter recalled staggering into a New Hampshire rally after a snowstorm, soaked in water and ice, only to find Hicks dressed impeccably, her makeup unmussed.

Still, the stresses of the campaign have occasionally spilled into public view: Despite their friendship, Hicks and Lewandowski were spotted in a screaming match on a Manhattan sidewalk, which later turned up in the New York Post, fueling reports of internal tensions.

Mostly, however, Hicks is a friendly, if disciplined, presence — Southern charm by way of Fairfield County. (Upon accompanying Trump to Scotland this past week, she told a reporter wryly, "I don't do well in plaid.") And she is unfailingly deferential to her employer, whom she refers to only as "Mr."

He seems to appreciate it. "I'm lucky to have her," Trump said in a telephone interview last week. "She's got very good judgment. She will often give advice, and she'll do it in a very low-key manner, so it doesn't necessarily come in the form of advice. But it's delivered very nicely."

Did he have qualms about hiring a campaign spokeswoman with no political background? "Well, I have a lot of political experience, so I wasn't really concerned about it," Trump said.

"And if it didn't work out, I would be able to make a fast change," he said. "But it has worked out."

Trump sent flowers to Hicks' family when her grandmother died this year. Her parents also visited Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Florida resort, where he greeted them and teased Hicks' father about the NFL. "He could not have been nicer," Caye Hicks said.

Hope Hicks' success has not surprised her family ("Hope's a fighter," as her father said), even as they harbor some concern about the intensity of her work. "She doesn't really talk to anybody anymore. She has no life," Caye Hicks said.

Trump's rallies, where violent protests sometimes break out, can also be disconcerting. "I have to hope the Secret Service is keeping them all safe," Caye Hicks said. "It's a crazy atmosphere."

She added: "I can't actually let her know how worried I am."

On free nights, Hope Hicks retreats to her parents' home in Greenwich — her mother sometimes hears a creaking door at 2 a.m. — to unwind. Her sister, Mary Grace, is a paramedic there, and her father, a former town selectman, remains a prominent figure: This spring, Greenwich proclaimed April 23, 2016, as Paul B. Hicks III Day to recognize his philanthropy.

Hope Hicks grew up in Greenwich swimming and golfing. When she was in sixth grade, a neighbor invited Hicks and her sister to a Ralph Lauren tryout; soon their photographs were in Bloomingdale's.

She made a cameo on Guiding Light, appeared on the covers of young adult paperbacks like Gossip Girl and once read lines for a film role with Alec Baldwin.

At age 13, Hicks told Greenwich Magazine, for a cover story about the Hicks sisters' modeling careers, that she was "not ready to decide if modeling is what I want to do with my life."

"If the acting thing doesn't work out," she said, "I could really see myself in politics. Who knows?"

The Hicks sisters earned enough from modeling to file tax returns. But Hope preferred lacrosse, leading Greenwich High School to a state championship and later playing at Southern Methodist University, where she majored in English.

After graduation, she and her father bumped into Baldwin at the Super Bowl. The meeting led to an interview and job offer from Matthew Hiltzik, whose clients include Baldwin and, fatefully, Ivanka Trump, who was impressed by Hicks and eventually hired her away.

Aside from Donald Trump's children, Hicks is the longest-serving aide on his presidential bid. Feldman, the family friend, said he doubted that anyone anticipated it would last this long. "You do the best you can under very unusual circumstances," he said. "In this case, circumstances that are more unusual than most."

The campaign is looking to hire a communications director. But as the general election looms, Hicks, who has recently been featured in Marie Claire and GQ, remains loyal, apparently unperturbed by the controversies swirling around her candidate and prepared to stick it out.

Trump, asked if Hicks would have a spot in his administration, replied, "She would definitely have a role."

How about press secretary?

"I don't want to comment on that," he said. "It's too early. I don't want to be making those prognostications yet. But she'll certainly be involved with us. She's terrific."