‘Make It Look Like North Korea’: Melania’s Ex-Best Friend Recounts Trump’s Request for Tanks, Choppers at Inauguration
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow opened her interview with the author of a new tell-all book, Melania and Me, by reading a passage about planning the 2016 presidential inauguration, in which President-Elect Donald Trump requested U.S. military tanks and helicopters to celebrate his win and specifically referenced the martial displays of totalitarian North Korea as his standard.
In an earlier except of the book seen by Vanity Fair, the Melania was reportedly often displeased by the way “princess” Ivanka seemed to elbow her way into duties traditionally taken on by the First Lady
On MSNBC on Tuesday night, the book’s author, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, told Maddow how she was stunned by the plans that both Trump and his daughter, Ivanka, had for the president’s swearing in.
From the book:
Back in New York, I attended a meeting with President-Elect Trump in his office. The space was packed boxes, trinkets, and piles of paper. And I thought I was a hoarder. His office looked like a garage sale. ‘Stephanie,’ Donald said, ‘tell me what’s going on with the inauguration planning?’ Ivanka joined Donald and me for the meeting. I presented to the two of them — I grabbed my binder, went over to Donald’s side of the desk and sat with my knees on the floor. He sat in his red leather chair, leaning back, collapsing his hands, ready for me to proceed. Ivanka hovered over me. I went throughundreds of pages covering all 18 events. Ivanka made constituents and asked questions, ‘Will there we a red carpet? Where do we walk during the parade? What about seating, after-party?’
Donald said, ‘I don’t want floats.’ I said okay. The president continued, ‘I want tanks and choppers. Make it look like North Korea.’ There was no way. He really wanted goose-stepping troops and armored tanks. That would break tradition and terrify half the country. When Ivanka heard North Korea, she didn’t bat an eye. I walked out of the meeting ruffled and worried. I texted a close friend and colleague, ‘North Korea-style military parade, bad idea?’
Winston Wolkoff went to discuss her claims that the Trump Inauguration Committee, which is under investigation by the D.C. Attorney General as well as the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York, misspent or never accounted for millions of dollars of donor money.
“You’re pretty frank about the idea that there is a lot of missing money, unaccounted for money in term office what was raised for the inaugural versus what was spent,” Maddow said of the book. “Do you feel like you have a general grasp of how much money that might be? And do you have a theory or any knowledge of where it might have go?”
“I do know that at the time that I questioned where the money was going or how much everything cost, I was asked to not attend any more budget meetings,” Winston Wolkoff recalls. “So it took me a few years to figure everything out. But it’s just, you know, people need to just follow the money.”
“Do you feel the investigations are on the right track in terms of them figuring out what happened to thee tens of millions of unaccounted for dollars?” Maddow followed up.
“Rachel, unfortunately, with our Justice Department right now, I don’t really know entirely what’s going on with some of these investigations,” Winston Wolkoff acknowledged. “And that’s a really sad and challenging place to be, especially since this election’s right around the corner.”
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
