Hope Hicks had no intention of traveling on Air Force One when she arrived at President Donald Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club to hang out with White House friends including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

But as is often the way in Trump’s world, plans shifted. Once Hicks was back on the president’s turf, she got sucked in, with a handful of staffers successfully prodding her to join them on Saturday’s trip to Ohio for a campaign-style rally.


Hicks’ surprise appearance at the airport prompted one former campaign official to joke that she was returning for “Season Two” of the Trump reality show. But White House officials and Republicans close to Trump are serious about reeling Hicks in to play a role in Trump’s nascent 2020 campaign, according to interviews with 10 senior administration officials and Republicans close to the White House.

“I think a lot of people would love to see her involved,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “She is incredibly smart, talented, and she gets the president. It would be a win across the board for the president if she was involved in any capacity.”

People close to Hicks and the White House says she’s open to participating — at least informally. Hicks declined to comment.

After Hicks left the White House in March, she spent time with her family in Connecticut and traveled. She’s now living on New York’s Upper East Side, and friends and allies say she appreciates the relative anonymity Manhattan offers after the Washington hothouse.

She hasn’t settled on the industry in which she’d like to work next — though she’s taken meetings at companies such as Ralph Lauren, Blackstone and Goldman Sachs as she tries to chart her next career move. Her allies say that even though she craved a return to private life after two years on the Trump campaign and one in the West Wing, she misses the buzz of the White House and the camaraderie of Trump’s inner circle — and still remains a de facto part of the Trump family.

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But the past year hasn’t been easy for Hicks amid the ever-expanding Russia investigation overseen by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Last July, she helped the president draft a misleading statement on Air Force One about a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between top officials, including Donald Trump Jr., and Russians. That statement said the purpose of the meeting was to discuss Russian adoptions, whereas Trump himself tweeted on Sunday that it actually meant to “get information” on his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Hicks was interviewed by Mueller’s team as part of its investigation, and she also acknowledged to House investigators this past winter that she’s told “white lies” on behalf of the president — an admission that could strain her credibility if she returns to a political role with Trump. Her sudden appearance Saturday aboard Air Force One as Trump’s lawyers continue to negotiate whether the president will sit down with Mueller’s investigators himself sparked a wave of pundit chatter about the potential for witness tampering.

The White House itself was also a constant source of stress. In the weeks leading up to Hicks’ departure in March, she seemed so frustrated by the administration’s internal dynamics and an unrelenting spate of negative headlines that she swore off ever working again in Washington, or even in politics or communications, said one person who spoke with her about career options.

Her final few months at the White House were marked by a high level of infighting within the communications and press teams and weeks of negative headlines about her relationship with former White House staff secretary Rob Porter. Porter resigned from his White House post in early February after it became public that his two ex-wives had accused him of physical abuse during their marriages — charges that raised broader questions about his security clearance.

Amid this firestorm, photographers camped out at Hicks’ apartment complex in downtown Washington. By mid-March, she left the city because she was so tired of the scrutiny inside the D.C. bubble, where every top Trump staffer has seemingly become a mini-celebrity, according to people familiar with her thinking.

Although Hicks has returned to Washington several times since March, it was unclear whether she had visited the White House, one White House official said.

Hicks intended to have dinner at Bedminster with Sanders on Friday night and then Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner on Saturday evening before her impromptu Air Force One trip, according to the official.

She surprised the traveling White House press corps by showing up at the Morristown, New Jersey, airport to meet the White House entourage. Other staffers on the trip included Johnny DeStefano, Sanders and Stephen Miller, who Hicks worked alongside during the campaign.

Several reporters immediately noted Hicks’ arrival on Twitter on an otherwise lazy August day, while photographers snapped pics of her descending from the airplane’s staircase in the footsteps of the president.

On the return flight, she walked back to the press cabin, all smiles, to talk off-the-record with reporters. Once back in New Jersey, she ate dinner with White House staffers and spent the night at Bedminster as a guest of Jared and Ivanka, leaving early Sunday, according to the White House official.

Apart from her Air Force One trip, the only other time Hicks has popped into public view was last month, when a tabloid photographer snapped photos of her and Porter in Central Park and walking in and out of Hicks’ apartment building.

To many Republicans, Hicks will always remain in the Trump fold given her years working for the Trump Organization and Ivanka Trump, her uncanny ability to translate the real estate-developer-turned-president’s commands into actions, and her deep ties to the unorthodox Trump campaign and White House, with its myriad officials past and present.

In that way, she is similar to Karen Hughes, said Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President George W. Bush. Like Hicks, Hughes worked for Bush on his campaign and at the White House before returning to her home in Texas and staying in close touch to informally advise the president from afar.

She then rejoined Bush world in time for the 2004 campaign. Many anticipate Hicks will do something similar for Trump world.

“Outside advisers can play a huge role because they get the president,” said Fleischer. “They may no longer be immersed in the daily trials and tribulations of the White House, but they understand what makes the president tick. It is a source of comfort for the president to have such a trusted person. That is why it works.”

