Where are Trump's first White House team and will they vote for him in 2024?

They bore witness to some of the most extraordinary moments of the Trump presidency: The decision to take out Abu Abkr al-Baghdadi. The first statements from the White House about a strange new virus. A ridiculous storm path bearing down on Alabama redrawn with a Sharpie pen. And the president’s ruminating about injecting bleach.

Some cabinet members, longtime aides and top White House personnel remained loyal until the bitter end and still support him. Others bailed out in the last days of his administration, both before and after January 6.

A smattering landed book deals they used to unload on the administration they once served, or penned op-eds denouncing Trump. Others followed him to Mar-a-Lago, helping the former president regroup as he plotted a way forward that took him to the cusp of the Republican presidential 2024 nomination.

Among Trump White House veterans, there are people who landed lucrative TV contracts, launched electoral careers of their own, tend to rescued goats and a three-legged cow, went back to school, and landed in a Florida jail.

Through acts of loyalty, some have earned a potential place in a second Trump term – or even on a Trump ticket.

Here is a compendium of what happened to the best - and the oddest - of Donald Trump’s first term team.

Former President Donald Trump is in Manhattan for his Stormy Daniels trial as he plots a return to the White House. But where are the cabinet secretaries, flaks, and key advisors who steered his administration? DailyMail.com tracked down many of the top players

Hope Hicks

She left the chaos of the Trump White House to take an executive role at the Fox Corporation, then came back to help steady Trump’s operation. Her posts included communications director and counselor to the president, joining the Trump White House from the campaign, where she was press secretary. 

She was interviewed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia probe, and by the House after January 6. 

She surfaced again in the Stormy Daniels trial, where she delivered tearful testimony under subpoena, still endeavoring to remain loyal to the man who brought her to prominence by hiring her at the Trump Organization and putting him on his campaign. 

Court documents show she was in the loop amid communications between Trump, former lawyer Michael Cohen, and ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.

Hicks, 35, whose former fling Rob Porter resigned from the White House amid abuse allegations reported by DailyMail.com, appears to have found love. She is engaged to Goldman Sachs boss Jim Donovan, 58.

Trump plucked Hicks from PR gigs and a teen modelling career to bring her into the Trump Organization. She ended up as counselor to the president at the White House, in a tenure interrupted by a gig at Fox. They were briefly reunited last week when she delivered tearful testimony during the Stormy Daniels trial while Trump was seated in the courtroom

Omarosa Manigault Newman 

Omarosa Manigualt Newman got to know Trump as a contestant on The Apprentice and vouched for him during his presidential campaign. She followed him to the White House as director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison. 

Then, in an extraordinary break, she penned a 2018 tell-all book, 'Unhinged,' which eviscerated her former boss, and accused him of racism and misogyny, quoting him weighing in against putting Harriet Tubman on the twenty. ‘You want to put that face on the twenty-dollar bill?' she quotes Trump as saying. 

Now, the entrepreneur who in 2022 was ordered to pay $60,000 in an ethics disclosure case after she left the government, is back in school. 

'I am finishing up a JD/MBA degree at Southern University Law School in Louisiana and I am a movie producer and have produce several award winning documentaries including one on Deion Sanders,' she told DailyMail.com. 

After her extraordinary break, Trump can no longer count on the support of his former 'apprentice.' She has said she 'fell for a con man' on the show.

Former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman is attending law school and pursuing an MBA in Louisiana, while producing films

Margo Martin

Martin was one of a bevy of cheerful aides who tried to manage the White House press operation during a chaotic term. And she was part of a skeleton crew that Trump brought with him to Mar-a-Lago to set up a post-presidency office. 

Now, his 27-year-old deputy communications director is often by Trump’s side at high profile events, accompanying him from Trump Tower to his Stormy Daniels criminal trial. 

The glamorous aide has sometimes fooled onlookers and even members of the press who mistook her for Melania Trump, who hasn’t made it to any of Trump’s trial appearances.

Trump deputy communications director aide Margo Martin followed him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. She has accompanied him to the Stormy Daniels trial in Manhattan 

Sean Spicer 

Spicer's tenure began with a claim that Trump’s 2017 crowd 'the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.’ He became a household name when he got played by Melissa McCarthy on Saturday Night Live. 2

After his time in the Trump White House, Spicer landed a show on the conservative Newsmax network, and has continued to forge a path in conservative commentary. Now the former White House press secretary has launched a digital show about the 2024 campaign that streams on YouTube, Apple, Spotify. 

His last show featured Donald Trump Jr.'s fiancee Kimberly Guilfoyle and House Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer.

'I’ve done four books a movie a reality TV show and two television shows,' he told DailyMail.com. His show, which he records out of a home studio, features commentary on how the political process works, based on his time as an aide on the Hill, to party committees, and to the White House. 

He's supporting his former boss in November. 'He’s not like asked,' he said. 'I’m going to vote for him. No one’s ever asked me "Would I endorse him."'

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer started out his tenure with a fabulous claim about Trump's inauguration crowd. He started a new digital show about the 2024 campaign

Stephanie Grisham

Grisham travelled with Trump when he was being followed by a small group of reporters, then became press secretary to first lady Melania Trump. 

But she was no darling of the media: she didn’t hold a single press briefing during her year on the job. So it came as a surprise when she torched her former boss in her tell-all memoir, ‘I’ll Take your Questions Now.’ 

Now, having broken with the former president, she has retreated to her home and family in Kansas, where she runs an animal sanctuary and pops up on TV to provide Trump analysis. 

After wrangling reporters and Trump, now she is currently tending to a 3-legged cow, a blind cow, along with donkeys, goats, and an arthritic horse. But she isn’t among the group of converted never-Trumpers who will withhold their vote or write-in someone without prospects of winning. ‘Biden. Not going to waste my vote,’ she told DailyMail.com.

Former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham moved to Kansas and now runs an animal sanctuary whose current inhabitants included a three-legged cow and goats

Sanctuary: The goats have an arthritic horse and a blind cow to keep them company  

Steve Bannon

Bannon was convicted in January of contempt in 2022 for defying a congressional subpoena, and is appealing his own four-month sentence. 

The former White House chief strategist has both pressured Trump and tried to boost his ‘anti-globalist’ agenda from the outside, hosting his daily ‘War Room Pandemic’ podcast and inviting in figures from Matt Gaetz to Marjorie Taylor Greene. 

He has urged Trump to ‘turn his guns’ on Biden rather than New York Judge Juan Merchan, and recently tore into Speaker Mike Johnson as a ‘disgusting, revolting loser.’ 

Bannon was arrested in 2020 on mail fraud charges related to his ‘We Build the Wall’ scheme, but Trump pardoned him on his last day in office. 

He has been involved in a series of legal skirmishes since, and on Friday his luck ran out when an appeals court panel upheld his contempt conviction, a move that could land him in prison.

An appeals court panel upheld Steve Bannon's conviction of defying a subpoena

Steven Mnuchin

His trip to the U.S. Mint with wife Louise Linton posing in front of pages of fresh currency was one of the iconic images of the Trump years. Mnuchin stayed through his tenure. 

He later denied reports that at one point after the Capitol riot he huddled with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about using the 25th Amendment to remove the president from power. 

‘We both believed that the best outcome was a normal transition of power, which was working, and neither one of us contemplated in any serious format the 25th Amendment,’ he told the House January 6 Committee. 

In March, it was revealed that he is assembling a group of investors to try to buy TikTok, which is contesting a new law forcing its sale by Chinese owners.

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was a successful Hollywood producer before he joined the Trump White House

Mnuchin and his wife, actress Louise Linton, provided one of the memorable images of the Trump years. He is helping assemble an investment group for the possible purchase of TikTok

Kellyanne Conway

She was the first woman to run a presidential campaign, and Kellyanne Conway kept her post as a loyal Trump defender throughout his term. She became a target on the left after coining the phrase ‘alternative facts,’ and ended up splitting from never-Trumper husband George Conway. 

There were reports in March she might come back to Trump world as an advisor, but the long-time pollster is set to launch a new podcast with Obama campaign guru David Plouffe.

Kellyanne Conway served as counselor to Trump after helming his winning campaign. She is set to produce a podcast with Obama campaign guru David Plouffe

Wilbur Ross

The billionaire investor was among the wealthiest members of the Trump cabinet check (with a net worth of $600 million back in 2019). He negotiated with China as Commerce Secretary. But there were reports he clashed with Trump and occasionally dozed off in meetings. 

More recently, he held an event for Virginia Gov. Glenn Younkin, in a potential sign he was looking for alternatives to Trump. 

But the former president attended his 85th birthday bash. Ross recently argued that Nippon Steel's $14 billion bid to buy U.S. Steel was ‘no real cause for concern.’

Mike Pence

He did what he called ‘his duty’ on January 6 by resisting Trump’s calls to throw out certified electoral votes, then stunned observers by tearing into Trump at the annual Gridiron Dinner as he prepared to launch a presidential campaign to succeed him. Pence didn’t testify to the January 6 Committee, but he did testify before a federal grand jury for Jack Smith’s January 6 case. 

But he found no lane in a presidential primary where Trump and his MAGA supporters dominated the contest. In March he announced that he cannot ‘in good conscience’ endorse Trump.

Bill Barr

Bill Barr quit the Trump White House shortly before Christmas at the end of Trump’s term. He broke with Trump publicly in his book, and told the January 6 committee Trump’s election fraud claims were ‘bull****.’ But he stunned commentators when he revealed this spring that he would support Trump over President Biden, calling the ‘left wing’ a greater threat. Now he helps lead Torridon Law PLLC, the law firm he helped found. Among its newest members: former White House counsel Pat Cipollone.

Paul Manafort

Manafort spent decades lobbying for international clients after climbing to the top tier of politics advising Republican presidents in their campaigns. 

Then Trump brought him on to organize his delegate operation at the 2016 convention. He rose to become campaign chair before a spectacular fall that saw him convicted of money laundering and obstruction of justice. 

His extravagant spending on such items as an ostrich jacket and his sharing of internal polling data with a man assessed to be Russian agent were key features of the Russia probe. 

Then he got a Trump pardon that wiped away his offense after serving two years of a seven year sentence. 

Now, after not cooperating with prosecutors, he is reportedly set for a return to Trump World, and could even snag a key role in the Milwaukee convention.

Sarah Sanders

The former White House press secretary forged a successful path from influence and access to power to actual power after her turn at the White House podium. She brought seasoned D.C. communicators to Little Rock, and soon began blasting out releases about dealing with natural disasters and earning an outdoor recreation award. (She was in D.C. last week unveiling a new statue in the Capitol for Daisy Lee Gatson Bates.

She left the Trump White House without too many political wounds in 2019, although she did have to endure some contentious briefings and yanked passes from some reporters amid Trump’s attacks on the ‘fake news’. She followed the footsteps of her father to become governor of Arkansas. 

And amid reports Trump is getting to put a woman on the ticket she is a dark horse candidate to run as his VP – prospects that inched up after another female governor, Kristi Noem, disclosed shooting her puppy in a gravel pit years ago. 

Spicer, her former White House boss, puts her in the top four or five. 'You want someone whose going to be loyal who knows you who knows the role you’re going to play, who’s not going to be super ambitious,' he said. 

Sarah Sanders went from the White House to claim the governor's mansion in Little Rock. She has been mentioned as a potential dark horse candidate to be Trump's vice presidential running mate

Anthony Scaramucci

Anthony Scaramucci's tenure as Trump's press chief was so short (10 days from appointment, six days officially) that it has become a metric for the quickest flame-outs in politics. (The hedge-funder insists his tenure was actually 11 days).

The SkyBridge Capital founder joined the Trump White House to try to steady its communications operation amid resignations and Trump's repeated attacks on the press. But his tenure quickly ended after he called former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus a 'f***ing paranoid schizophrenic' in a bizarre interview with the New Yorker and used an expletive to describe former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon.

He would later join the anti-Trump resistance, posting days ago that 'Nobody wants Biden to win more than me and I am including Melania.' He told CNN in March, 'We have to focus on Mr. Trump being the most un-American presidential nominee in U.S. history.'

Peter Navarro

Like Bannon, Navarro refused to testify before Congress in its January 6 inquiry. He claimed his testimony and documents were protected by executive privilege. He had outlined a plan he dubbed the ‘Green Bay Sweep’ to have Pence hold back the certification of electors, then knocked out votes in disputed states and have Trump be the winner.

In March he began his four-month prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena. He blamed his conviction on ‘Trump haters’ and told reporters from a Florida strip mall shortly before reporting to prison that his incarceration was a ‘crippling blow to the constitutional separation of powers.’

Peter Navarro reported to prison in Florida in March after being convicted of defying a congressional subpoena

James Mattis

Trump loved his nickname and hailed the Marine general ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis at campaign rallies. He resigned as Trump’s Defense Secretary in 2018, protesting the decision to pull troops out of Syria.

He denounced Trump after his infamous march to St. John’s Church across from the White House amid George Floyd protests. ‘We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution,’ he wrote. It was one of the most forceful denunciations of the Trump era.

‘Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,’ he wrote. ‘We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.’

Stephen Miller

He’s not the flashiest former Trump White House operative, but he could some day be among the most influential. Stephen Miller helped craft some of Trump’s fiery lines and hard-edged policies on immigration.

Now, he is crafting policies on a range of issues through his America First Legal Institute. Many of his hard-right policy proposals could serve as a foundation for a second Trump term, although Trump’s campaign has repeatedly denied leaked reports about specific plans for mass deportations or other policies.

Miller, a former aide to Jeff Sessions, is also rumored as a potential candidate to run Homeland Security for Trump.

Alyssa Farah Griffin

Farah held a top White House communications post and was a press aide to Mike Pence – a position that few could imagine would put her in the crosshairs of one of the most intense personal and political clashes of the Trump years.

She broke with Trump over his election fraud claims and January 6, having resigned her post in December 2020. She had been prepared to go on TV to discuss Trump’s election loss, but objected when Trump loyalists remained at the barricades.

‘I saw where this was heading,’ she told Politico. She publicly castigated Trump on January 6, writing, ‘Condemn this now, @realDonaldTrump.’ She lost her entrée to Trump land, but found a second career as a prominent Trump critic in TV commentary, then landed a perch as a co-host on ABC’s ‘The View.’

On air, she has taken flack for criticizing Trump but failing to get behind Biden. After she focused her comments on high inflation and food prices, co-host Joy Behar scolded her: 'People who are like you, who say that you hate, can’t stand Trump, you have to vote for Biden.'

Allysah Farah Griffin broke with Trump over his election overturn effort, and landed a spot on ABC's 'The View'

Kayleigh McEnany

Rounding out the Trump press secretaires was Kayleigh McEnany, who joined the White House after serving as national spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. She stayed with Trump until his last days in office. She was with the president during his rally at the Ellipse, then was back in the White House having a turkey sandwich during the first reports of violence at the Capitol.

She turned over her texts to the House January 6 Committee, and gave a video deposition of her own. The texts showed her strategizing with Fox host Sean Hannity about post-election strategy amid resignations and moves against Trump in Congress.

'1 - no more stolen election talk,’ Hannity texted her, according to records she handed over. '2- Yes, impeachment and the 25th amendment are real and many people will quit.' Her response: 'Love that. Thank you. That is the playbook. I will help reinforce.....'

After she left the White House McEnany joined Fox as a host of ‘Outnumbered.’

She was on Fox Friday blasting the prosecution in the Stormy Daniels case. 'I predict, I think he at least gets a hung jury here. Should be an acquittal,' she said. 'I think it's going to badly backfire on the Democrats.'

Kayleigh McEnany stayed with Trump until his final days as president, then landed a gig as on Fox News on the 'Outnumbered' program