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The White House pastry chef

John Kiriakou's former next-door neighbour, a White House pastry chef who was in the building when Donald Trump came to meet Barack Obama four days after the 2016 election, and who told Kiriakou that the president-elect looked sick and looked scared.

The White House pastry chef is a source John Kiriakou cited in December 2025 for a first-hand impression of Donald Trump in the days immediately after his first election victory.

The neighbour

Kiriakou introduced him as his old next-door neighbour from when he was still married — a man who worked as the White House pastry chef.[1]

What he saw

The chef was in the building when Trump came to meet Barack Obama for the first time, four days after the election.[1]

His report to Kiriakou was two clauses: “Trump looked sick and he looked scared.”[1]

The reading

Rall’s interpretation followed immediately — that Trump had never thought he was going to win, and had been running only to enhance his brand — and Kiriakou’s answer was one word: “Exactly.” Rall’s summary was that he was “a dog who caught a car.”[1][2]

Both men had already reached for the same evidence from the other side of the screen: the widely circulated photograph of the Trump family gathered in a hotel suite on election night as the result was called, in which, as Rall put it, every one of them wore the same expression.[3][1]

Kiriakou closed the exchange with a general remark rather than a partisan one — that anyone winning the presidency ought to be frightened, whoever they are, because it is a big job.[2]

See also

References

  1. DeProgram Show with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas, 2025-12-1049:47 on YouTube · Transcript
  2. DeProgram Show with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas, 2025-12-1050:19 on YouTube · Transcript
  3. DeProgram Show with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas, 2025-12-1049:15 on YouTube · Transcript

Sourced from John Kiriakou's on-record public statements. See his profile for the full body of his interviews, podcast appearances, and short-form video.