Transcript for Former White House insider releases explosive book

Back now for our exclusive. Most explosive book yet from an insider in the white house. It's called "Team of viper, my 500 extraordinary days in the white house. "The author, cliff Sims take us inside the oval office. He'll join us after this look at why his book is making headlines. Lying, scheming, back-stabbing, chaotic. Some of the words he uses to describe his time in the white house. In his new book, the former communications aide payments the picture of an administration with a culture of ruthlessness. This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine. Reporter: Led by a commander in chief, Sims said, could be impulsive. Reckless. Methodical and patient in a crisis. One day, he helped the president armed with a sharp pea and white house stationary compile an enemies list. Trump said we'll get rid of all the snakes. He write this is detail about former chief of staff John Kelly, job the worst he had ever had. People apparently think that I care when they write that I might be fired. If that ever happened, that would be the best day that happened since I walked into this place. He calls Conway a cartoon villain brought to life. Accuses her of leaking information to the pres and exchanging text messages with reporters that bash members of the administration by name. And shared private conversations with the president. And cliff Sims joins us. Walk to "Gma." Thank you for having me. Kellyanne Conway responded. The real leakerses get much more positive press than I do. While it's rare, I prefer to knife people up front so they can see it coming. I noticed in what kellyanne said there is what's conspicuously missing is a denial. The fact of the matter is, you can talk to anybody in Washington, D.C., it's about the worst kept secret in town, really. So, I wrote the truth about that. Wrote the truth about many other things. Wrote the truth about myself. One of the things you took away from your white house memoir was your willingness to be critical of yourself. I set out to do that in my book was tell the truth about me and everyone. You do make a -- point out a lot of mistakes you believe you made. How about your relationship with the president. There's a lot of incoming coming from the white house. One of things we're hearing is that the president doesn't have strong memories of working with you. You weren't part of his inner circumstance. The good news is, the people that buy the book, you'll see does. S of photographs in private settings. The private dining room. Walking down the west Kol nad. Not a lot of aides have that kind of one-on-one access to the president. You know they gotta say something. They're going the call you a traitor. Call you this. Call you that. My relationship with the president. One of the most independent mat settings for him is recording video. That was where we got the know each other. Doing his weekly address to the nation. And being in a lot of meetings. Tonses of scenes of foreign leader meetings. Meetings with congressional member. And so one of the most explosive things I think in the book, you mentioned your setup piece there, was when it was just he and I and one other person in the private study just off the oval making this list of who inside the white house is a problem for him. It was a scathing scene. You call the book "Team of viper." How much responsibility does the president bear for that? I have heard it said every president gets the white house they deserve. I believe some of the way he operates, the crow yative chaos, his penchant for putting two rival staff members in a room and letting them fight it out does breed some of this competitive aspect. It's a tough place to work. A tough environment. Highly competitive. You have a bunch of type "A" people in there. You combine that with how ideologically diverse the white house was. You come to good decisions when people with diverse points of view share their opinion. Ultimately, that only works if when people walk out of the room, they do the decision that the president made was. That's where thing seem to break down. You write that you resigned. Several sources say that's not true. You were fired. They say you recorded a briefing you were giving the president on your phone. E-mailed that recording from one of your cell phone to another that was picked up by the secret service. They told John Kelly. You were fired. It's the equivalent of a video selfie in a briefing we were doing before he speaks to a conference of mayors. I looked op my government government phone. If you want to hide something, you don't put it on that phone. I e-mailed it to myself when I resigned. Actually, I thought they might try to set something up like this. And I brought my resignation paper for the white house. Reason for resignation? To prur sue another opportunity in the administration. Sarah Sanders said, we hated to see cliff resign from the white house. The fact pattern durnt match up. You said you had a job coming up at the state department. They say that job was never offered. I sat with Mike Pompeo on the seventh floor of the state department in his office. He offered me a job as a senior adviser for him. He asked me, why do you apt to move to the state department? I said I wanted to work for the president, not government. First of all, I said, what a time of being in the foreign policy? And I said, number two I'm tired of being in the team of vipers. I wanted a strong team environment. I played sports in clemg. Tough environment, people come together. Create this bunker mentality, it's you against everyone else. That didn't happen in the white house. I thought there might be's opportunity to do that at state. Cliff Sims. Thank you very much. You can read an excerpt of the book on our website.

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