The young media consultant and political insider was embraced in Trump’s inner sanctum — until a storm hit and Sam Nunberg found himself on the outs

“I know the current story is that Trump didn’t want to win, didn’t think he’d win, but it’s not true. He wanted to win and, in those final days, he told people close to him that he believed he’d win” (Photos: Amir Levy)

O

n November 8th of 2016, Donald Trump went to cast his vote in the United States presidential election. As he walked out of his car toward the polling station, Manhattan’s Public School 59, he was greeted by a hail of boos. “When I heard about that, when I saw the footage,” Sam Nunberg says, “I suddenly really wanted him to win, like never before. I hoped he’d pull through.”

Nunberg stops picking at his shawarma and looks up. “And by the way, I know the current story is that Trump didn’t want to win, didn’t think he’d win, but it’s not true. He wanted to win and, in those final days, he told people close to him that he believed he’d win.”

Sam Nunberg has been through several rounds with the current president of the United States. In his twenties, he was one of the closest aides to Donald Trump well before anyone took the businessman’s candidacy seriously. Then Nunberg was hired, then fired, but he never really left Trump’s orbit. Today, the 31-year-old legal and public-affairs consultant for various clients is the happy-to-share insider used by many in the media as the one who truly understands the president. From my perspective, seated across the table from Nunberg at a Manhattan grille, he looks less information peddler and more a dutiful grandson who’s come to visit his zeidy, with an easy smile and a courteous air.

Never Give Up  

Sam Nunberg noticed something interesting the first time he met Donald Trump.

“My father was his lawyer, so he knew us. We were at a sporting event and he was sitting right in front of us, with an important politician seated a row back. Trump asked us to move, and I realized why he wanted us out of the way — to make sure the pictures would show that he had a better seat than this politician. I was amazed at how well he understood optics. This was way before everyone had phones on their cameras. Even then, he had this sense of how things would look to others. He knew how to use a camera.”

The Nunberg family are members at Kehilath Jeshurun and Sam attended the Ramaz School, the premier Modern Orthodox day school. “But my primary inspiration was my grandfather, Simon Nunberg, a Holocaust survivor. He taught me about pride and dignity. He taught me to be strong, to protect your family and fellow Jews, and to never give up.”

Travel to Israel was important in the Nunberg home as well. “My parents took me several times and after each visit, I had a sense that this was more than a destination, it was part of me.”

The Manhattan teenager was familiar with Middle East politics, and the spillover into the American political debate, but it was just conversation.

Then came 9/11 and it turned personal.

“I was only 15 years old, but it opened my eyes. I would listen to Mark Levin on the radio and find myself mesmerized. I was committed to really getting it, I needed to understand every concept. I started to appreciate conservative thought and the dangers posed by radical Islam.”    

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 700)