Mercedes Schlapp

Mercedes Schlapp doesn’t have an easy gig as the White House strategic communications adviser. She must contend with a president who serves as his own communications director, multiple legal battles that can throw off the administration’s messaging strategy and a number of Cabinet secretaries embroiled in their own controversies.

But through it all Schlapp has stayed focused on the mission at hand, working closely with the White House’s political affairs and legislative affairs teams and policy shops as well as the broader communications operation to coordinate policy rollouts. Her focus so far has been on issues like school safety, opioids, infrastructure and trade.

Schlapp doesn’t deal with reporters much in her current role. But she drew a burst of attention in March when her name was floated as a contender to replace Hope Hicks as communications director. The fight has been ugly. Allies to Schlapp and Tony Sayegh, another contender for the job, began jousting in the media. After the Washington Examiner published a negative story about Sayegh, Schlapp said she called him to have a heart to heart.

“I kind of refer to us as an old married couple in a lot of ways,” Schlapp said of Sayegh, who works at Treasury. “We bicker, we laugh, we’ve known each for a while so we have these sort of tough personalities. But I’ve always made it a point to talk to him directly and have good conversations.”

Schlapp says the biggest misperception of working in a Trump White House is that “we’re all trying to kill each other.” While there are sometimes disagreements internally, like in any workplace, she believes it’s way overblown by the media.

Schlapp says working in Trump’s administration is “very different” from working for President George W. Bush. One reason why? The tweets.

"Obviously, we are doing policy rollouts and looking ahead but we are also dealing with the day to day of social media and the president's tweets," which she said makes her job "much more exciting" than her first go-around in the White House. "The president is the ultimate decider of the agenda and the message and our team is here to support him."

She said she has also tried to nurture young staff on the communications team she helps oversee. She essentially manages about 20 people and is known to be liked internally.

Schlapp grew up in Miami and became interested in politics from an early age, in part because her immigrant father was once held as a political prisoner in Cuba in the 1960s by the Castro regime.

After working on both Bush campaigns and in the White House, she co-founded Cove Strategies with husband Matt, now the chairman of the American Conservative Union. The couple, who have five daughters, was branded “the cool kids of Trumpism” by The Washington Post last year.

Just like other former cable news stars in the Trump administration, she was a Fox News contributor and also hosted a SiriusXM radio show with her husband. She says the couple's “weekly date" used to be their show tapings.

Matt Schlapp said his wife “enjoys being back in the fight in an official capacity."

“Sometimes people think she’s just a sweetheart and she can be,” he said. “But she’s also tough, and let me tell you, as her husband, I think long and hard before I cross her. Often when I do, the response is in Spanish and I know it’s not good.” — Daniel Lippman

Headshot by Alex Wong/Getty Images. Story photo by Mike Theiler/AFP/Getty Images.