Last week I had drinks with a (liberal) friend who made a passing swipe about how badly Trump treats women. I said that I’d seen much worse. That was not, perhaps, the best comeback — though it’s true.

What I should have cited was the fact that he surrounds himself with extremely competent women. Beautiful, well-dressed, well-spoken competent women.

Embed from Getty Images

Witness Hope Hicks, White House Director of Strategic Communications. She’s clearly good at her job, considering that someone bad at it will get canned in only 11 days (RIP, Mooch), and the fact that she worked for Trump during the campaign and during his presidency.

Embed from Getty Images

Let’s be real. This woman dresses like a BOSS. Of all the women surrounding Trump, she is the best dressed in my eyes. Young, fresh, showcasing her beauty, but with enough toughness to stand out.

Unlike Melania’s elegance, Ivanka’s carefully-curated blank slate, and Kellyann’s “exuberant mom” style, Hope Hicks presents a fresh look with a point of view.

Embed from Getty Images

You really can’t go wrong with a fur-collared coat. Her image of competence is bolstered even more by the sheer contrast between her sleek, black silhouette on inauguration day and Kellyann’s display of patriotism in coat form.

(Not that there’s anything wrong with coats.)

Embed from Getty Images

Ignoring the fact that these candid shots seem to always catch her facial expressions at the exact wrong moment, Hope Hicks still manages to look glamourous. And somehow, she makes taupe suede pumps look good, too.

I suppose that the plain shoes and bag, tidy hair, and simple silhouette of her shift dress are what keep her looking pulled together despite the fun print on the dress. I wish she would add a little more jewelry, but that might pull the look more in the direction of fashion than in the direction of “I know what I’m doing.”

Embed from Getty Images

So let’s revisit this whole “Trump hates women” idea. Here’s Hope Hicks, part of Trump’s woman-hating team of Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, and Stephen Miller, clearly having a laugh and enjoying herself.

She outlasted Priebus.

She could probably outlast you.