3/31/2023 0 Comments Secret animosity![]() It wasn’t always easy to get them to open up to me most recent and current residence workers follow a long-established code of ethics that values discretion and the protection of the first family’s privacy above all else. In the more than 100 interviews with current and former White House staffers, senior advisers, and former first ladies and their children I conducted for my new book, The Residence, I had an unprecedented look at what it’s like for those who devote their lives to caring for the first family. “When you’re somebody’s domestic, you know what’s going on.”Īs a White House reporter for Bloomberg News, I traveled around the world on Air Force One and on Air Force Two-filing reports from Mongolia, Japan, Poland, France, Portugal, China and Colombia-but the most fascinating story turned out to be right in front of me every day: the men and women who take care of the first family, who share a fierce loyalty to the institution of the American presidency. “You heard so much foul language” in the Clinton White House, he said. “If I’d thrown a lamp at somebody, I think you would have known about it.” Clinton made light of the story, which had made its way into the gossip columns. ![]() In an interview with Barbara Walters, Mrs. ![]() The butlers, Payne said, were told to clean up the mess. The rumor among the staff was that she threw a lamp. All of a sudden he heard the first lady bellow “goddamn bastard!” at the president-and then he heard someone throw a heavy object across the room. The butlers motioned him over and put their fingers to their lips, telling him to be quiet. White House Florist Ronn Payne remembers one day during the Clinton presidency when he was coming up the service elevator with a cart to pick up old floral arrangements and saw two butlers gathered outside the West Sitting Hall listening in as the Clintons argued viciously with each other. Kate Andersen Brower spent four years covering the Obama White House for Bloomberg News and is a former CBS News staffer and Fox News producer. This article has been adapted from her book, The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House (Harper Collins), which is out April 7, 2015.
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