the music man

A Trump Aide Would Play Him ‘Memory’ When He Needed to Calm Down

Still awaiting reports on his review of the Cats movie. Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos by Getty Images and Universal Pictures

Donald Trump’s temper as president was no secret. Nor was his love for “Memory,” the Cats song he played at campaign rallies, to the chagrin of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Betty Buckley. Now a new tell-all book reveals that the former president found the Cats 11 o’clock number especially calming during a tantrum — and it was even an aide’s job to play it, and other songs, when things got heated. In her forthcoming book I’ll Take Your Questions Now, former press secretary Stephanie Grisham wrote that an aide nicknamed “the Music Man” would follow Trump to soothe him with show tunes, per a New York Times report on the book. (The aide? Grisham’s ex Max Miller, now running for an Ohio House seat with Trump’s support.) This revelation gives way to a slew of questions: Which version of “Memory” did Trump prefer? What did he think of the Cats movie? And what other show tunes were on that playlist?

A Trump Aide Would Play ‘Memory’ When He Needed to Calm Down