Hope Hicks, who worked for the Trump Organization before transitioning to Trump’s campaign in 2015, is widely seen as a Trump whisperer on par with Trump’s daughter Ivanka. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo Hicks’ departure doesn’t mean the end of her connection with Trump The president is known for keeping former staffers close even after they leave the White House.

Hope Hicks shocked Washington with her resignation but that doesn’t mean she’ll be out of touch with President Donald Trump.

The president rarely cuts ties with former campaign and White House staffers who have resigned or been fired — and many have found themselves talking to him as much, or more, once they leave his service.


“This is where President Trump applies his experience as one of the most successful developers in history,” said Jason Miller, the senior communications adviser to the Trump campaign, who still remains in touch with the White House. “Just because you might be done teaming up on a certain project doesn’t mean you won’t be in position to help create a great deal in the future.”

Trump’s kitchen cabinet of former staffers and close advisers is poised to wield more powerful influence on Trump as his White House staff continues to shrink — and as he pivots to his nascent 2020 campaign, which will be run by Brad Parscale, digital media director of the 2016 campaign.

In recent weeks, Trump has leaned more heavily on the crew referred to as “the originals” — people who were on the 2016 campaign — to help craft his message. Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was spotted in the Oval Office, while ex-communications director and longtime New York pal Anthony Scaramucci has started talking again regularly with the president, according to a close White House adviser.

“It is not people resurfacing,” said one administration official. “It’s that they never really leave.”

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When the president wanted to preview his State of the Union speech in late January, he opted to do so in the Map Room of the White House with a bevy of surrogates and former campaign officials including Lewandowski, Miller, Dave Bossie, Bryan Lanza, and Steve Moore — familiar faces from the campaign who stay in close touch with the White House. One attendee said Trump was in a great mood that afternoon, thanking them for their help and “girding them for the next battle.”

“No one ever leaves the greatest show in the world,” said one former campaign official. “Sometimes you just miss an episode or two.”

A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Hicks, who worked for the Trump Organization before transitioning to Trump’s campaign in 2015, is widely seen as a Trump whisperer on par with Trump’s daughter Ivanka. He’s treated Hicks like family, referring to her as “Hopester.”

Trump has also remained open to staffers he didn’t even like when they worked for him. Former chief of staff Reince Priebus, who was abruptly pushed out of his job in July, now talks to the president with some frequency and eats out with key administration officials, including economic adviser Gary Cohn.

The one exception may be former strategist Steve Bannon, whose participation in Michael Wolff’s book, “Fire and Fury,” deeply offended the president and White House — with its on-the-record retelling of infighting, factionalism and criticism of the Trump children.

In doing so, Bannon broke a few key Trump rules, says the administration official. First, he surprised the president with those comments. Secondly, he challenged Trump publicly, rather than doing so privately.

Trump also thought Bannon wasn’t good on TV, a huge no-no for a president obsessed with appearances and communication skills, the official added.

That does not mean Bannon himself won’t resurface at some point. “At the end of the day, if Steve Bannon can be useful to Trump, even he could possibly find a way back into his good graces someday,” said a Republican strategist close to the White House.

The president has always liked to surround himself with a loyal, tight-knit crew, dating back to his days as a real estate developer. His habit of trusting only people he knows well dates back to his childhood, a trait passed down from his father, according to former Trump Organization executive Barbara Res.

She said Trump’s father, Fred Trump, taught his son to distrust the people around him. Fred Trump would often say “that any employee who doesn’t try to steal from his boss was stupid,” according to Res, who said Trump had such misgivings about his employees when he was modernizing the Grand Hyatt in New York in the late 1970s that he often brought his first wife, Ivana Trump, to the construction site to oversee things.

“He trusts himself more than anyone else,” said Res, who’s now a Trump critic.

Andrew Restuccia contributed to this report.

