"We've remodeled it since then," Trump reportedly said of the space near Oval Office where Clinton and Lewinsky initiated their sexual relationship. The president was giving a tour to a member of the media when he said, "I'm told this is where Bill and Monica…" before trailing off and not completing the sentence, according to an excerpt from the book "Team of Vipers" by former White House staffer Cliff Sims that was shared with the Washington Post.
Trump reportedly loves giving tours of the presidential residence. Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley told the Post that while most presidents "want to keep parts of the White House private for their families and themselves," Trump is "very restless and doesn't like to work. He'd rather roam around and BS with people than hunker down."
Trump is also reportedly keen on needling administration colleagues when he's roaming around and shooting the breeze during work hours. One of the president's go-to targets is Vice President Mike Pence, a former governor of Indiana known for his fervent religiosity. After visitors stopped in Pence's office before visiting with Trump the president asked them, "Did Mike make you pray?" former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon has told the New Yorker.
Tours also splice in politics. "There was no collusion," Trump recently told a group of lawmakers visiting the White House, the Washington Post's report says. "It's insane!"
The president is apparently obsessed with the chandeliers at the White House, is known to gloat about number of highly sophisticated television sets installed across the West Wing and thinks the White House's main staircase is "beautiful, just really luxurious," Sims writes in the book.
"I think it's one of the greatest inventions," Trump has said of the system dubbed "SuperTivo," designed specifically to meet demands of the president's cable television consumption. The remake was made with a "smirk," writes Sims, "as if to acknowledge his reputation as a television addict."
Trump must have given up on ditching his reputation as someone who probably talks to the TV as if the people on the screen can hear him. He previously sought to disavow the notion that he was always glued to cable television news programs. "Believe it or not, even when I'm in Washington or New York, I do not watch much television… People that don't know me, they like to say I watch television — people with fake sources. You know, fake reporters, fake sources… But I don't get to watch much television. Primarily because of documents. I'm reading documents. A lot. I actually read much more — I read you people much more than I watch television," Trump said in 2017.
Trump routinely tweets about Fox News' early-morning broadcasts and requisitioned a 60-inch flat screen TV to be mounted in the president's private White House dining room, Time magazine has reported.
