“I had no idea what Trump had just approved, and I’m not sure he did, either,” Sims writes.

‘People always wonder about this button,’ told a confused Carson,” Sims writes.Īfter Trump successfully summoned a fresh drink, he told Carson, “That sounds wonderful, Ben,” according to Sims. “At some point noted his Diet Coke was nearly gone and went back to his button routine, but his heart wasn’t quite in it this time. But the president started “to lose interest” during the meeting that lasted approximately 10 minutes. Ben Carson, Trumps secretary of housing and urban development, visited the Oval Office.Īs Carson outlined his vision for a department that would be focused on literacy, Trump drank his Diet Coke, according to Sims. Update your settings here to see it.Īccording to Sims, he wrote Team of Vipers based on “hundreds of pages of notes” taken in real time and from in-person interactions with the president and other staffers.Īnd one of the most “memorable” red-button moments occurred when Dr. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. No one wants me to push that button, so we’ll just keep it over here. “If Trump noticed someone glancing at the box - and sometimes completely unprompted - he would pick it up and move it farther away from himself,” Sims writes.Īccording to Sims, Trump would say, “Don’t worry about that. “ What happens if he presses that red button? I’m sure many a first-time visitor wondered to themselves,” Sims writes in Team of Vipers, released this week, which gives a critical look at the 2016 campaign and the chaos of the Trump White House. President Donald Trump once threatened Kim Jong-un with nuclear war by declaring that he had a “much bigger & more powerful” button than the North Korean leader.Īccording to a former White House staffer, this same image of nuclear deployment is what the president wanted associates to think of when he pressed a red button on his desk in the Oval Office.Ĭliff Sims - who served on the communications team as a special assistant to Trump until 2018 after working on Trump’s presidential campaign - says he remembers meetings in the Oval Office where attendees couldn’t help but stare at the small wooden box, featuring the presidential seal and a red button on the president’s Resolute desk.

Trumps red button on desk