“Kal,” she said, “we got word that [XXX] is trying to take his private jet to Haiti. POTUS needs you to call him to let him know he can’t do this. The island doesn’t have enough fuel right now, so planes that are landing can’t take off again, and they take up space on the tarmac. We need to make sure we can land real aid planes as quickly as possible.”
Jesus. As if shoes and makeup weren’t bad enough, now an actor was trying to fly down to Haiti to be a hero, and it was my job to stop him. I called my buddy Tommy Vietor, who had recently been promoted to National Security Council spokesman （and was being deployed to Port-au-Prince himself）， for more background on the actor. “Yeah, this situation is shitty,” he confirmed. “He actually seems like a good guy. He’s trying to bring three nurses with him and has volunteered in the country previously, so I’m sure he’s desperate to help everyone he knows there. Basically, since the Haitians control their own airspace and landing, we can’t prevent him from going. But it looks like he might try to pay them off in order to land his jet. It’s true that he’ll take up space on the tarmac, and those larger aid planes won’t be able to land.”
My job seemed simple enough: I’d have to call this actor and tell him not to go. If he was committed to saving lives, he needed to know that this was absolutely going to do the opposite—he’d be making things worse, not better. I dialed his agent. I made it clear to the assistant who answered that I was calling from the White House, on behalf of the president of the United States.
She put me on hold.
Fun fact: Hollywood is the only industry in which people would put us on hold when we called on behalf of the president or the White House. You could get through to pretty much anybody at all, in any profession in the whole world… except people in Hollywood. This always embarrassed me.
“Hi, sorry,” the assistant said, getting back on the line. “What is this regarding again?” To my Hollywood friends reading this, please promise me: When President Ocasio-Cortez’s staffer calls you, don’t put her on hold. I repeated where I was calling from and said specifically that it was about one of their acting clients who was trying to make a trip to Haiti in his private jet. “Oh, okay. Please hold.”
As I was holding on line one for this actor’s mega-agent, I saw another call coming through on line two: another 310 area code, another person from Los Angeles. I put line one on hold and clicked over to answer line two. This time, it was a Hollywood producer who sounded like Alicia Silverstone’s character Cher from the movie Clueless. She had gotten the conference call invitation email and wanted to pitch me something brilliant:
Hiiiii! SO. I have an idea? Like for Haiti? Okay. SO. It’s called: Heels for Haiti. And like, we were thinking you know, how like, these women? These poor, POOR women, right. They, like, have nothing? And we, like, have all these high heels and like, you wear them once and then you’re never going to wear them again but they’re still good heels. WE SHOULD SEND THEM TO HAITI!
Great idea! Except, oh man, by the time the heels get there, they’ll be out of season. I needed to get this delusional time-waster off the phone, so I could get back to—what was I doing?—oh yeah, waiting on hold for the agent whose client might try to bribe a foreign government to land his private jet. What a day. I hastily told the Heels for Haiti producer to email me a proposal, politely hung up, and resumed waiting on line one.
After another five minutes on hold, the mega-agent himself finally got on the phone and flat-out refused to give me the actor’s phone number. I reiterated that the White House was imploring his talented client to please not go to Haiti, that the president was instead calling on him to help with critical, lifesaving fundraising. As directly and respectfully as I could, I told him straight up, “That flight will cause big problems for aid workers and the victims they are saving. People could die. Please, we just need him to know.”
Hearing this, the agent laughed at me as if we were discussing someone’s frivolous hobby. “Oh, that’s just how [Redacted] is! He’s going to do what he wants to do.”
I looked out my two-foot-thick bullet-and-bomb resistant office window, staring at the Washington Monument in the distance, feeling angry and sick. My mind was racing. These are exactly the times when you’re not supposed to let your passion or emotions get the best of you because it’ll derail the rest of the work you need to do. I thanked the mega-agent for his consideration and politely hung up.
I glanced at my in-box. Underneath a grim Situation Room update was a new email, subject heading, “Heels for Haiti!” Jesus Christ, she had actually emailed a full proposal.
Often, when writing responses from the White House, I’d compose a draft in the heat of the moment and then—because of the Presidential Records Act （PRA）—remember what I wanted my contribution to history to be and I’d revise it. So, I might have started by typing exactly what I wanted to say: “Please, do not send your $1,200 Diane von Furstenberg heels to a natural disaster zone, you fucking lunatic.” Then, knowing that such a response would be put on PRA and one day make me look bad, and because I was a dedicated staffer whose guidance might actually save lives, I’d graduate to writing, “Hi! Thank you for your thoughtful suggestion! I can tell that you are passionate about making a unique contribution to this important cause on behalf of the American people. Right now, the most helpful thing is financial donations. Regarding the heels, perhaps you might consider organizing a fundraiser auction benefiting the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.”
* * *
These bizarre incidents make for great stories, but they were, thankfully, real outliers. Most people （Hollywood or not） were generous in their eagerness to help—and in ways that were more meaningful than donating used pumps to people who didn’t have food.
Some examples: George Clooney’s Haiti telethon raised $61 million. Olivia Wilde had been working outside Port-au-Prince since long before the quake and stepped up big-time by raising money and awareness. Sean Penn had a strong connection there, too, and after the earthquake, he expanded his efforts via J/P HRO, his organization on the ground. The outpouring of generosity from the entertainment community was heartening. Lots of celebrities used our talking points to guide the public to the right places to donate and help, and those good people all over the country opened their hearts and bank accounts. Everyone was doing their part.
Our round-the-clock week finally came to a close late Friday night. On Saturday morning, as planned, Presidents Bush and Clinton would be joining President Obama to formally launch the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund from the Rose Garden. I wrote a final memo at Tina and Valerie’s request, detailing our entertainment messaging and outreach, then walked over to Tina’s office in the West Wing to make absolutely sure they had what they needed for the next morning’s senior-level meeting with the former presidents.
“We’re ready. Just go home and get some sleep,” Tina said. “And you don’t need to come in tomorrow.” This is one of the many reasons we all loved Tina. Her expectations were high and she could be tough, but she also cared deeply about her staff. “Thank you,” she said as I turned to leave. “POTUS really appreciates this, the extra push is huge. Get some rest!”