Book reveals how Johnny McEntee became ‘deputy president’ of Trump WH

A bombshell new book reveals how a no-name “f–king idiot” MAGA fanatic grabbed power in the final days of the Trump administration — becoming “deputy president” and creating a “Gestapo” to root out traitors.

With the White House dissolving in paranoid disarray in President Donald Trump‘s final year in office, Johnny McEntee, 29, emerged seemingly out of nowhere to become head of the ultra-powerful Presidential Personnel Office, according to “The Final Act of the Trump Show” by ABC’s chief DC correspondent, Jonathan Karl.

McEntee had virtually no political experience, starting out with the administration carrying Trump’s luggage, Karl writes in an excerpt published by The Atlantic on Tuesday.

But he convinced Trump he was the man to ferret out “secret Never Trumpers” who had infiltrated the White House — and ended up perhaps the most powerful player aside from the president at the time, the book claims.

The uber-loyalist made his chops playing on Trump’s fears about “deep state” schemers close to home, Karl writes.

“Some Trump aides privately compared the PPO to the East German Stasi or even the Gestapo — always on the lookout for traitors within,” says the book, set to be released next week.

One White House underling learned of the office’s alleged rabid fervor the hard way.

The young woman “liked” an Instagram post by Taylor Swift, a Joe Biden supporter — and the gesture was deemed so alarming that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows received a phone call about it in the middle of a Senate confirmation hearing for Trump Supreme Court pick Amy Coney Barrett.

“To the enforcers of Trumpian loyalty, this was a sign of treachery in the ranks,” Karl writes, adding that the “enforcers” were in McEntee’s office.

It’s not clear what happened to the staffer, an assistant at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

McEntee, as head of the PPO, oversaw the hiring and firing of about 4,000 political appointees in the White House after landing the coveted position around February 2020, The Atlantic said.

A former quarterback for the University of Connecticut, he began working for the administration in 2018 as Trump’s baggage handler — only to soon be fired after his FBI background check discovered he’d failed to report “suspiciously large sums of money’’ tied to gambling, Karl writes.

But McEntee apparently was never far from Trump’s radar. The president personally requested him to lead the PPO in early 2020, over the objections of some staffers.

Challenged over hiring McEntee, Trump blew up.

“You people never f–king listen to me!” the president blistered, according to the book. “You’re going to f–king do what I tell you to do!”

After McEntee assumed the top job, he started assembling his team, which a senior Trump official called the “Rockettes and the Dungeons & Dragons group,” Karl says.

His top aides included a former Radio City Music Hall Rockette and then-20-year-old conservative Instagram “influencer” Camryn Kinsey.

Kinsey later said in an interview, “Only in Trump’s America could I go from working in a gym to working in the White House, because that’s the American dream.”

McEntee’s team also involved close friends, including other young Trump activists, and “the most beautiful 21-year-old girls you could find,” a senior White House official told Karl.

“And guys who would be absolutely no threat to Johnny in going after those girls,” the insider quipped of the handsome neophyte political player.

But McEntee appeared to have many detractors in the administration.

A high-profile cabinet secretary told Karl that the PPO chief was “a f–king idiot,” the book says.

But as another senior source marveled, “He became the deputy president.”

McEntee relished his political muscle and made no bones about flexing it, Karl writes.

When other more experienced aides with knowledge of constitutional law warned Trump he could not legally overturn the 2020 presidential election results, McEntee texted Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff on Jan. 1, 2021 — listing all the reasons why he thought the president should attempt it.

As McEntee boasted confidently when first asked to take the post, “People have been telling me I should do that for a long time.”

“I didn’t feel ready before, but I am 29 now and I’m ready,” he said, according to Karl.

McEntee did not immediately return emails seeking comment from The Post on Tuesday. The phone number listed for him did not pick up.