The Day of the Donald Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Or, better yet, we can draft a bill mandating batteries on smartphones last seventy-two hours. And if they don’t do it, we punch them in the face.” He pulled out his own iPhone. “Hey, Siri, tell the CEO of Apple to call the White House pronto.”
    The phone beeped, and Siri’s voice replied, “I’ve added it to his schedule for tomorrow at three PM eastern time.”
    The man caught Jimmie’s astonished expression. “Come on,” the guy said. “The amount of data these things collect on you—of course that works.”
    Emma tossed her phone back into the drawer. “Corey, I’d like you to meet Jimmie Bernwood. You’ll be seeing him around quite a bit—he’s President Trump’s new ghostwriter. Jimmie, this is Corey Lewandowski, the press secretary. You may remember him as President Trump’s campaign manager. Or maybe not.”
    Lewandowski crushed Jimmie’s hand. “You’ve got some pretty big shoes to fill,” the man said. Then he turned to Emma: “We’ve really got to hustle. They’re waiting—”
    “Fine, fine,” she said, following Lewandowski out the door in a huff.
    Jimmie watched them leave. He flexed the fingers of his right hand, trying to regain feeling. What was he supposed to do now? He didn’t have a desk of his own, as far as he knew. She’d talked about setting him up with an e-mail, so he assumed he should find someone in their IT department. Even though he was sitting just a few steps away from the president of the United States’ office, he was struck with déjà vu. It was that Not only do I have no idea what’s going on here, but I’m also not entirely sure anybody else knows, either feeling.
    Emma poked her head back into the office. “Well, are you coming?”
    “He said something about a Security Council?” Jimmie asked. He swallowed a burp. “That sounds top secret. I didn’t think I’d have clearance.”
    “That badge on your lanyard gives you the same clearance as the POTUS.”
    He fingered the badge. His clearance level was listed as “ORANGE.” Just underneath a terrible picture of his face. Ormaybe it wasn’t the picture that was terrible—maybe it was his face. Shaving the beard had done him wonders, but there was that Sarah Palin saying: You can’t put lipstick on a pig . Jimmie had grown up in rural Iowa, and damned if he didn’t know that to be the truth.
    “What’s POTUS?” he asked, trailing Emma into the hallway.
    “You really don’t follow politics, do you? POTUS,” she explained, “stands for President of Trump’s United States.”
    Jimmie had the same security clearance as the president. The president of the United States. He couldn’t believe it. Somebody had to have screwed up.
    While they were waiting at the mirrored doors of the elevator, who to his wandering eyes should appear but Cat Diaz. She was on the warpath, absorbed in her phone, when she glanced at Jimmie out of the corner of her eye. She returned to her screen but immediately did a double take and slammed on the brakes.
    “Jimmie,” she said. There was a look of confusion on her face.
    “Cat,” he said. “You work here now? That’s crazy, meeting like this.”
    Her gaze went straight down to his badge. As she read his clearance level, her brow only furrowed further.
    My eyes are up here , he almost said but thought better of it. He was staring into her cleavage like it was the abyss.
    “I’d heard you dropped off the grid,” Cat said, looking up at him.
    “Turns out, if you want to buy a clean pair of boxers, you need to get back on the grid.”
    The elevator opened behind him. “You can catch up later,” Emma said, shoving him in so hard he almost knocked over the bonsai tree on the decorated pillar in the corner.
    Jimmie gave a little wave to Cat as the doors slid shut. He had no idea why he’d brought up his boxers, but all in all, not a bad chance encounter. He was looking forward to catching up later—not romantically, of course. He kind of had an eye on