During the last 18 months of Donald Trump’s presidency, when dozens of books were written about the Trump administration, Voice of America White House correspondent Steve Herman vowed not to write a book about the Trump presidency.
He was true to his word.
Although there’s a lot about Trump in his new book, "Behind the White House Curtain: A Senior Journalist’s Story of Covering the President – and Why It Matters," it puts Trump’s tenure into perspective with a fascinating historical look at how the media has covered presidents since George Washington. "Behind the White House Curtain" is released today; he’ll do a book lecture and signing June 13 at the National VOA Museum of Broadcasting in West Chester Township.
Herman, a Cincinnati native who grew up with a poster of all the U.S. presidents on his Losantiville bedroom wall, explains in great detail the White House press corps’ routines covering Trump and President Joe Biden.
“The things people are most fascinated about are what it is like to cover the president in the Oval Office and what it’s like to travel on Air Force One,” says Herman, who spent more than a quarter of a century reporting for the VOA from Asia before serving as senior White House correspondent 2017-21. He’s now the VOA’s chief national correspondent.
Herman describes how he captures audio from the president in the Oval Office or the White House lawn with a microphone on an aluminum extension pole “that I can extend nearly 10 feet like a giant fishing rod.” He explains how when he’s a White House pool reporter how he feeds audio to fellow journalists before writing his story.
"Behind the White House Curtain" reveals how many controversies during Trump’s tumultuous tenure were not new. The legitimacy of popular and presidential electoral votes was questioned in 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was elected — and a mob tried to force its way into the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the electoral vote count on Feb. 21, 1861.
Trump wasn’t the most prolific “golfer-in-chief,” Herman notes. Woodrow Wilson holds the record for more than 1,000 rounds of golf while president. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who installed a putting green on the White House South Lawn, played 800 rounds in eight years. Trump spent about 300 days of his presidency golfing, exceeding Barack Obama’s 250 rounds in two terms, Herman writes.
Herman also debunks the notion that “decorum deteriorated in presidential press relations in the new millennium” by unearthing printed attacks on George Washington in his second term, some fueled by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson.
“Republican editors claimed that Washington was imperious and desired to become king, and that he was a thief and age had robbed him of his mental faculties. (Does that sound familiar?)” Herman writes.
Herman points out that calling journalists “the enemy of the people” was first used by Russian dictator Josef Stalin in the 1930s. He talked about Trump’s frequent use of that phrase when Herman spoke at the National VOA Museum of Broadcasting in 2019. He previewed several topics in his book, including seeing President Richard Nixon at the 1970 All-Star Game at Riverfront Stadium, and his success from shouting very short questions (seven words or less) to the president at press gaggles.
In an interview, Herman says that he “wanted to put what happened in the Trump administration into perspective. When you’re a deadline journalist, it’s very challenging because you don’t have the time or room to put things into context."
Yet some events in his book were uniquely Trump, such as when Trump “riffed about injecting bleach as a possible treatment” for COVID-19.
“Everybody around the president lives in fear of contradicting the president. On his worse comments, they say he was just kidding or being sarcastic, but they will never say he’s wrong. The problem is he is wrong most of the time,” Joe Lockhart, former White House press secretary for Bill Clinton, told Herman about Trump.
Or Trump’s chaotic management style. “For Trump, rivalries among underlings were an amusing sport. The Apprentice TV program he had hosted effectively continued as a reality show when Trump became president . . . As we frequently witnessed, many of Trump’s meetings and discussions as president occurred spur of the moment. This was bewildering for White House staff,” Herman writes.
Stephanie Grisham, Trump’s third of four press secretaries, described the process as “a clown car on fire running at full speed into a warehouse full of fireworks,” Herman notes.
Herman also discusses how he was targeted by Michael Pack, a Trump supporter named CEO for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees the VOA. National Public Radio’s David Folkenflik reported in 2020 that Herman was investigated for being “unfair to Trump” in his reporting.
Two Pack aides “appear to have violated laws and regulations intended to protect the federally funded news outlet from political interference or influence. That has set off alarms within the VOA newsroom … The investigation of Herman is the latest and perhaps the most blatant in a growing series of episodes pointing to the politicization of the international broadcaster since Trump's pick Michael Pack” took over in June 2020, Folkenflik reported.
Among the allegations of bias was Herman quoting someone criticizing Trump in a fair and balanced story, Folkenflik noted. A federal judge later issued a 76-page decision ruling that Pack and other USAGM officials could not “make or interfere with personnel decisions related to individual editorial staff at VOA or its sister networks,” Herman writes.
Herman, speaking to me by phone from his Virginia home, says he hopes “readers, regardless of where they are on the political spectrum, find this an objective book. I don’t take a political position. That’s not my job as a VOA correspondent. At the VOA, we’re telling America’s story to the world.”
Herman, whose family’s roots go back 150 years in Cincinnati, moved as a child in 1971 to Nevada, where he started his career as a Las Vegas radio reporter supplementing his pay by freelancing for CBS, NBC and other radio networks. "Beyond the White House Curtain" also includes Herman’s experiences covering underground nuclear tests in Nevada by the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Department of Energy) and the 2011 Japanese earthquake that rocked the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.
Although he left Cincinnati more than five decades ago and spent most of his career in Asia, Herman has several Ohio keepsakes in his home — six Crosley radios and a William Saxbe campaign bumper and button for U.S. Senate.
Cincinnati will be one of his first book signings after addressing the National Press Club Wednesday, June 5, in Washington, D.C. He’s arriving a day early to see the Reds play the Cleveland Guardians June 12 and eat some chili.
“I’m well beyond withdrawal for Cincinnati chili,” he says. “You don’t have to twist my arm hard to come back to Cincinnati.”
Steve Herman will speak about his new book, "Behind the White House Curtain: A Senior Journalist’s Story of Covering the President – and Why It Matters" at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 13, at the National VOA Museum of Broadcasting, 8070 Tylersville Road, West Chester Township. The lecture is free, but reservations are required at https://form.jotform.com/241338315490151
