Ex-Trump aide touts plan
Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham last year wrote a book that was critical of her old boss, President Donald Trump, her colleagues and herself. “I’ll Take Your Questions Now” was an irresistible read because it showed how the depravity on display in public trickled down to the little stuff behind the scenes. Grisham “wielded power in the service of petty schemes and resentments,” wrote The Washington Post’s Carlos Lozada in a review of the book.
In an October appearance on CNN, Grisham received a grilling on her sincerity. “The question is: Are you saying you regret it to sell books?” asked CNN “New Day” co-host John Berman. “Do you really feel bad?” She replied, “I regret it, yes. Again, this is not me trying to cleanse my reputation. I have — that’s not going to happen, and this is going to follow me everywhere, period, end of story.”
Now Grisham is proving her regrets. She met on Wednesday with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and told reporters, “I cooperated fully and I will continue to do so.” On Thursday morning, she appeared again on “New Day” with more details: “There were a couple of things that they didn’t know. There were things that I was able to confirm,” said Grisham. “And I think there were things that I was able to kind of help put together like a puzzle.”
“I have great faith in this committee. It’s given me hope for 2022, as we reflect on, you know, today, which was a terrible day for democracy and just for our country,” she told Berman and co-host Brianna Keilar.
The former Trump press secretary also said she was working with a group of former Trump officials to prevent the former president from winning the presidency again. The idea, she said, was to “formally do some things to try and stop him and also, you know, the extremism, that kind of violence and rhetoric that has been talked about and continues to divide our country. I myself am hoping to travel the country and talk to people who are believers, like I once was.”
As Grisham recounts in her book, she was an early Trumpite, having joined the campaign as a press aide. After Trump’s inauguration, she bounced back and forth between press operations for the president and the first lady.
She was elevated to White House press secretary in July 2019, though she never conducted a formal press briefing. So all those Trump “believers” whom Grisham hopes to convert might not recognize her. (In fairness, she did do a number of Fox News appearances.)
Who are the other former Trump associates involved in this effort? Grisham wouldn’t tell CNN, but Politico has reported that two others are former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci.
Which means that the group boasts the input of three of the Trump era’s most prominent media embarrassments: Grisham, because of her holding the title of press secretary without holding a single briefing; Taylor, because he wrote the much-discussed “Anonymous” op-ed in the New York Times about thwarting Trump’s excesses and look how that worked out; and Scaramucci, because of his 10 days at the White House — or was it 11?
Just think of what they can accomplish together. Trump officials enjoyed a certain clout with a specific American demographic thanks to their association with the former president. Once they buck Trump, they lose that clout. Now they’re left speaking to the rest of the country, which never trusted them to begin with.
Such are the professional consequences of having chosen to work with such a man. “I’m still not looking for redemption,” said Grisham on Thursday, sounding wise. “I’m actually just looking forward.”