When I first got to the White House, I was super anxious all the time about not knowing the answer to every question. And Obama was actually the person who let me be me. He was like, "Alyssa's not the person who wears the Ann Taylor suit. She's not the kind of person who always says the exact right thing." And I'm a bit of a wild animal. I brought a different perspective and I was a little bit more irreverent and casual.
Alyssa MastromonacoI don't think that Donald Trump treated Hillary any differently than he treated Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. He is a deeply disrespectful person who didn't have enough reverence for the office he was running for to act humane.
Alyssa MastromonacoWhen you travel with the president, especially when you are traveling to foreign countries, the people that you travel with really become your family pretty quick. ... Most of the people who travel with me, they knew when I would get a stomachache.
Alyssa MastromonacoI wanted young women to know that I was very lucky that I worked for people who literally let me be me. If I had ever been anyone other than me, I would have come off as a fake, a phony, a fraud, and never would have gotten where I ultimately ended up. You can be yourself and be in politics, and they should know that. That was kind of why I wanted to do it - because I didn't see any freaks in politics like me.
Alyssa MastromonacoI think that if you look at all of the books that have ever been written about people working in the White House, they're sort of the opposite of my book. And I think that so many people want to write a book that sort of memorializes their place in history. And I wanted to write something for all of the women who are like me. I grew up in upstate New York, I graduated high school with 70 other people and didn't ever know that anything like this would have really been an option for me. So I wanted other young women — and men — to know that just being you is plenty.
Alyssa Mastromonaco