The calls from the boss can start as early as 2am. By 6am there is little time to think about sleep. 

There is a professional blow-dry appointment to make, layers of impeccable make-up to apply and a designer outfit to choose – because in Donald Trump‘s White House, looking the part is almost as important as doing the job.

As one woman who worked inside the Trump orbit described it, the desired aesthetic had to be no less than ‘Maga perfect’.

Those glossy smiles and immaculate clothes are, of course, what the outside world sees when the parade of highly intelligent women who work for the Trump administration appear on television alongside the President at Maga rallies and press conferences.

But in a White House plagued by accusations of misogyny and sexual misconduct by its commander-in-chief, the reality for those working there is rather different. 

Limited pay for demanding, 24/7 roles. No time to raise a family. And, of course, an implicit requirement to spend considerable amounts of their time and hard-earned cash on their appearance.

To pull back the curtain on life as a Republican ‘glamazon’ at the heart of US politics, several former female staffers have described, in confidence, what it is really like to The Mail on Sunday.

Summed up in a word? Exhausting. ‘It gets to be utterly draining,’ as one burned-out employee admitted to me last week. 

Natalie Harp, aide to Trump, walks to a vehicle after arriving with Trump on the Ellipse near the White House on August 9, 2026

Trump with former US Attorney General Pam Bondi (centre) and former US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (left) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC

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‘You have to be exceptional at your job, which is a given, but if you’re a woman you have to look a certain way, dress a certain way and be available 24/7, because this is a President who barely sleeps.

‘Add to that the pressure of a family at home and it’s no wonder so many of us flame out.’

That tension was laid bare just last week when Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s formidable press secretary, announced she was leaving the White House to become a full-time mother to her two young children. 

The 28-year-old admitted her decision was ‘bittersweet’, saying that since returning to the White House following the birth of her daughter in May she felt she could not be the mother her baby and two-year-old son deserved – while simultaneously giving the job the ‘constant time, energy and attention’ it required. 

It was a remarkably candid admission from someone who has become one of the most recognisable women in Trump’s Washington. 

Despite that, Leavitt was photographed on Friday night, looking fiercely chic in a scarlet-red dress alongside the President as they prepared to board Air Force One to New York. She is due to step down this month.

And she is not the first to do so even this year alone.

In fact, six women from Trump’s inner circle have left since January: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem, Labour Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson and Director of Media Affairs Sonny Joy Nelson.

But perhaps it is little wonder. Quite aside from the normal pressures of a high-powered job in government, 80-year-old Trump is a man known for objectifying women (who can forget his famous ‘grab her by the p***y’ remark?) who is infamous for demanding total fealty, has unrelenting, exacting standards, and who sleeps only four hours a night. 

He is known for throwing ‘tantrums’ when things don’t go his way and expects those closest to him to be available all hours of the day and night.

And it is also no accident, commentators say, that the women elevated to work for Trump – who, in a previous life, owned the Miss Universe contest – are all beautiful, perfectly manicured and extremely capable.

Those who spoke to the MoS did so on condition of anonymity because their subsequent roles are within Trump-supporting organisations. 

The enduring fallout of working at the heart of the Maga movement under such a ‘polarising’ boss is such that many discovered they were viewed as a ‘liability’ by some employers, particularly blue-chip companies. Others have left the workplace completely.

A legal source said: ‘The President is always ‘on’. When he wants someone he shouts your name. And you’d better come running. He thinks nothing of calling you at 2am. 

‘You are expected to look a certain way. Most of the women at the White House get their hair blown out at least twice a week before work and then there is pressure to go to the gym and dress well. 

‘A lot of the younger aides don’t make that much money. You’re talking maybe $50,000 [£37,000] to $70,000 [£52,000] a year. It’s not only a stressful business working in Trump’s world – it’s an expensive one.’

Trump and Margo Martin, his deputy director of communications, at the 1st tee during LIV Golf Bedminster on August 11, 2023

For Karoline Leavitt, sources suggest, the pressure of her job while juggling two very young children simply got too much.

One source said Trump was so ‘dependent’ on her he ‘constantly’ called her during her most recent maternity leave, asking when she would return.

During her first maternity break she returned to work three days after giving birth because of the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Karoline told an interviewer: ‘I had the baby in my arms and I looked at my husband and said: ‘I guess I’ll be going back to work.”

Another source close to the President’s inner circle said: ‘I don’t think Karoline minded being called but I think reality set in this time around. 

‘She’s always going to be expected to put the President first and maybe it’s time to put her kids first?’ Other women have been open about their time in Trump’s corridors of power.

For Blanche Sprague, who served as his high-powered executive and enforcer long before he became a force in politics, no time of day was off-limits for a call.

Now 67, Sprague has described her role as ‘like a nanny’ dealing with Trump’s petty grievances and requests.

‘He used to call me up at night and say, ‘Did you know that there’s a soda bottle in front of Trump Plaza?’ and I would have to make sure that it was picked up right away because he would drive past again to see that it was gone,’ she recalled.

On another occasion, at a book signing in Florida following the publication of Trump’s The Art Of The Deal in 1987, Sprague’s task was to make sure his favourite pen, with robin’s egg blue ink, did not run out. 

More recently, Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, has credited her upbringing with an alcoholic father for her ability to work alongside Trump.

While the President does not drink, Wiles said that he had an ‘alcoholic’s [exaggerated] personality’ and governs with the mindset that ‘there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing’.

Meanwhile, other published accounts of life in his inner circle give more troubling insights into his alleged behaviour.

Stephanie Grisham, who worked as press secretary during Trump’s first term – and became First Lady Melania’s right-hand woman – wrote a scathing memoir, I’ll Take Your Questions Now, in which she accused the President of constantly berating her, describing his anger as ‘terrifying’. 

‘I began to see how his temper wasn’t just for shock value or the cameras,’ she wrote. 

‘I began to regret my decision to go to the West Wing.’ In one outburst, she said, Trump ‘unleashed on me’.

‘His eyes were fixed and filled with anger. His face had passed red and was turning almost purple.’

She also accused him of allegedly targeting young female employees, including a press aide who he invited into his private Air Force One cabin because he ‘wanted to look at her a**’.

But Trump has dismissed Grisham as a disgruntled former employee who had become ‘angry and bitter’ and was ‘paid by a radical Left-leaning publisher to say bad and untrue things’.

There is another way of looking at Trump’s interest in women, of course. The ‘dichotomy’ with Trump, as one source points out, is that – while he clearly loves being surrounded by brilliant, feisty (and good-looking) women – he is also a champion of their skills.

One said he had ‘always promoted women to senior positions, going all the way back to his early days in business’.

Many of the women who have worked for him are only too happy to acknowledge this fact.

One said: ‘You have to remember, this is a man who had two women – Kellyanne Conway and Susie Wiles – leading his election campaigns. During his first term his daughter [Ivanka] was front and centre.

‘He gave Karoline Leavitt the press secretary’s job at 26 and even people who disagree with her political views agree that she’s been one of the most impressive and effective press secretaries of all time. 

‘It’s unfair that people attack the President when he has been a great supporter of women in a town that has always been male-dominated. 

‘People criticise him for wanting women around him to have a certain level of professionalism and beauty, but that’s who he is.

‘He’s a businessman at heart and he has always believed that you need to dress to impress. 

‘To be fair, it’s not just the women. I’ve seen him attack men for wearing jeans or an ill-fitting suit.’

And those same defenders argue that it is natural ‘female competition’ that drives Trump’s women to focus so heavily on appearance.

‘He doesn’t force these women to have 6am blow-outs or get plastic surgery or go on weight-loss drugs,’ the source points out.

‘They get the Botox and fillers because the White House is a competitive place.

‘Everyone is vying for his attention. He’s the President of the United States, for God’s sake.’

Trump doesn’t mind that attention at all, according to author Michael Wolff, who has written four books about the President.

He says: ‘I think part of it is Trump saying, ‘They are available to me’. That’s what he wants people to think. I think that it remains enormously important to him to be seen as the guy the women are around.’ (For his part, Trump’s spokesman Steven Cheung has in response called Wolff ‘a lying sack of s***’.) But there is no suggestion that Trump does not recognise female expertise – far from it.

Two of his closest aides are Natalie Harp (social media) and Margo Martin (press). Both are impossibly leggy and glamorous and are reported to have the President’s ear.

Meanwhile, when it comes to Leavitt, she will firmly remain on Trump’s speed dial.

‘The President trusts her judgment. He respects her decision to spend time with her kids but he will continue to seek her guidance,’ one loyalist said.

Some have suggested that Leavitt has chosen to jump ship ahead of November’s mid-term elections in which Trump is expected to get a drubbing. 

But the legal source said: ‘I would strongly refute that. I think Karoline has shown how times have changed.

‘If anything, Trump has empowered women. He’s made it very clear that he’s keeping her on as a trusted adviser. She’s only 28.

‘In the 1980s, women had to choose between a career or family. Now they don’t. 

‘She’s more than proved herself at her job and she’s not going anywhere. Mark my words. Karoline will remain a force behind the scenes.’

With applications to fill positions at the White House at an all-time high, particularly from young women hoping to emulate the success of others like Leavitt, there is unlikely to be a shortage of glamazons to take her place.