One reporter got a private Oval Office press briefing. The results were predictably wild.

New York magazine's Olivia Nuzzi scored the interview of a lifetime Tuesday, when White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders roped her in to the Oval Office for a private press briefing with President Trump, Chief of Staff John Kelly, Vice President Mike Pence, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

In an account published Wednesday, Nuzzi details the many ways the top officials tried to convince her that there is no "chaos" in the White House. No, Trump insisted, "we have a very smooth-running organization ... There's no chaos." The president spent a substantial amount of time reassuring the reporter that he was not even considering firing Kelly, despite rumors to the contrary.

The officials, joined by other top staffers like communications chief Bill Shine and Pence's chief of staff Nick Ayers, sequestered Nuzzi for a solo info-session. Trump, unsurprisingly, spoke the most, providing gems like "I've never lost an election in my life, okay? You know that, right? I've run one time. It was for the presidency." He also said that the GOP is going to fare "very well" in the midterm elections. Even "if we don't do okay," he said, "I think we'll be in great shape."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"Here's the thing," Trump told Nuzzi, who was completely blindsided by the private briefing, "I've given you, and without the regulations and without the taxes, I've given you the greatest economy in the history of our country or, at a minimum, close." Soon after that, Pence jumped in to remind the president that he was cutting into their scheduled lunch plans. Trump and the other officials tried to convince Nuzzi that she really should write "very, very wonderful things" about Kelly — and nothing else. Read the wild account at New York.