Director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office
In office January 8, 2020 – January 20, 2021
President
Donald Trump
Preceded by
Jordan Karem
Succeeded by
Catherine M. Russell
Personal Aide to the President
In office January 20, 2017 – March 13, 2018
President
Donald Trump
Preceded by
Joe Paulsen
Succeeded by
Jordan Karem
Personal details
Born
(1990-05-09) May 9, 1990 (age 34) Fullerton, California, U.S.
Political party
Republican
Education
University of Connecticut (BA)
College football career
UConn Huskies – No. 18
Position
Quarterback
Personal information
Height
6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)
Weight
208 lb (94 kg)
Career history
College
UConn (2008–2012)
High school
Servite High School (Anaheim, California)
John David McEntee II (born May 9, 1990) is an American political advisor and dating app CEO who served in the Trump Administration. He has been a Trump loyalist during and after the Trump presidency.[1][2] He began as a body man and personal aide to the president but was dismissed by White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly in March 2018 after failing a security clearance background check, which had found that he was under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security for issues related to gambling.[3][4][5][6][7]
After Kelly was dismissed in December 2018, Donald Trump rehired McEntee and named him Director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office in February 2020.[8][9][10][11]
McEntee played a significant role in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election in the lead-up to the January 6 Capitol attack, and promoted numerous conspiracy theories about the election.[12] After leaving the White House, McEntee founded The Right Stuff, a dating app for conservatives.[13][14] In 2023 McEntee joined Project 2025.[15]
Early life
[edit]
McEntee was raised in a Roman Catholic family in Fullerton, California.[16] His father is John D. McEntee, a producer and manager who books celebrities for private and corporate functions, as well as for resorts including the MGM Resorts, Caesars Palace, and Venetian Properties.[17] He first attended St. Angela Merici Parish School in Brea, California, and then attended Servite High School in Anaheim, where he played quarterback on the varsity football team.[18]
McEntee was a redshirt his first year at the University of Connecticut, and completed his communications degree in the spring of his senior year.[19] He played college football for the Huskies, but was used sparingly in his first two seasons.[20] McEntee was named the starting quarterback during the 2011 season, after a strong performance against Buffalo.[21] In the next game against Western Michigan, he recorded his season and career-high, after throwing for 300 yards and four touchdowns.[22] McEntee lost the starting job to transfer Chandler Whitmer in the 2012 season, and dropped down the depth chart to third-string, making just three appearances for the Huskies.[23]
Career
[edit]
In 2015, McEntee worked as a production assistant for Fox News, focusing on the channel's social media accounts.[16] He successfully lobbied for a job on the Trump campaign, joining as a volunteer in July of that year, later being promoted to a full-time position as trip director.[24]
After Donald Trump won the 2016 election, McEntee was asked to join his staff as an aide, serving as his body man.[5] McEntee accompanied Trump on all trips, most notably the President's trip to Saudi Arabia in May 2017, where "Man in red tie" (McEntee) and "#Trump's_daughter" (Ivanka Trump) briefly became the most trending hashtags in that country.[25]
McEntee's service in the White House ended on March 13, 2018, when he was fired due to an "unspecified security issue" that was later revealed to be gambling-related.[3][26][27]
McEntee was hired by Trump's 2020 reelection campaign as a senior adviser for campaign operations. In January 2020, McEntee returned to the White House, where he shared some of his former duties with Nick Luna, the Director of Oval Office Operations.[28] Shortly after his return, McEntee was then promoted to Director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office,[9] overseeing the President's 4,000 appointments to the federal bureaucracy. McEntee reported directly to the President and continued to hold his role as Trump's bodyman concurrently. He was tasked with identifying and removing political appointees and career officials deemed insufficiently loyal to the administration, despite having no previous personnel or people management experience.[27][29][30][31] His reappointment was controversial given the circumstances of his dismissal.[32][10][11][33] On November 9, 2021, McEntee was issued a subpoena to testify by the House January 6th Committee.[34] On two occasions in 2022, he appeared before the committee in a taped deposition,[35][36] returning in person in January 2023.[37]
Leading up to the certification of the 2020 election, McEntee falsely claimed Mike Pence had the authority to overturn the results. McEntee sent a series of bullet points via text message to Pence's chief of staff to assert that Thomas Jefferson "Used His Position as VP to Win" the 1801 election.[8] In a piece about McEntee, ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl characterized the analysis as "absurd" because "Jefferson didn't discard electoral votes, as Trump wanted Pence to do. He accepted electoral votes from a state that nobody had questioned he had won."[38]
In 2021, McEntee met with Peter Thiel to pitch him several tech startup ideas, one of which was the idea for a conservative dating app called The Right Stuff. Thiel agreed to fund The Right Stuff and subsequently made a seed round investment of $1.5 million. The app launched on September 30, 2022.[39]
In May 2023, it was announced that McEntee was joining The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025.[40] Described by The New York Times as "one of Trump's most trusted aides", McEntee and his association with Project 2025 serves as the main link between the Heritage Foundation and former President Trump.[citation needed] On November 1, 2023, the Times reported that his role includes working as "part of a team searching for potential lawyers" for Trump's next Administration.[41] McEntee has stated that as part of Project 2025, he supports a total ban on pornography.[42][43][44][45]
In November 2023 Karl wrote that in the closing weeks of the Trump presidency McEntee worked with Douglas Macgregor, who was about to assume the role of Senior Advisor to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, to draft a brief document ordering swift withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan and Somalia. The president signed it and it was forwarded to Kash Patel at the Pentagon without any review by the legal, military or national security apparatus, nor was it recorded by Derek Lyons, the White House staff secretary responsible for filing and transmitting official presidential orders. After Miller and Joint Chiefs chairman Mark Milley went to the White House to inquire about the order, it was rescinded.[46]
^Wisckol, Martin (January 23, 2017). "Trump Appointments as of 1/19". washington.edu. University of Washington. Archived from the original on November 6, 2021. Retrieved February 8, 2017.
^Extremism, Global Project Against Hate & (May 14, 2024). "Project 2025 May 8th Update". Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. Retrieved July 21, 2024.