Stephanie Grisham Quotes

It’s so nice when toxic people stop talking to you. It’s like the trash took itself out.

Donald Trump repeatedly promised he would hire "the best people." He did not. That is not my opinion; it is President Trump's, which he expresses frequently. Trump has said that his first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, was "dumb as a rock" and "lazy as hell." His attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was "scared stiff and Missing in Action," "didn't have a clue," and "should be ashamed of himself." Trump described one of his assistants, Omarosa Manigault Newman, as "wacky," "deranged," "vicious, but not smart," a "crazed, crying lowlife," and finally a "dog." After lasting only eleven days as communications director, Anthony Scaramucci "was quickly terminated 'from' a position that he was totally incapable of handling" and was called "very much out of control." An anonymous adviser to the president was called "a drunk/drugged-up loser." Chief strategist Steve Bannon was "sloppy," a "leaker," and "dumped like a dog by almost everyone." His longtime lawyer Michael Cohen was "TERRIBLE," "hostile," "a convicted liar & fraudster," and a "failed lawyer." The president was "Never a big fan!" of his White House counsel Don McGahn and "not even a little bit happy" with Jerome Powell, his selection to head the Federal Reserve, whom he called an "enemy." His third national security advisor, John Bolton, was mocked as a "tough guy [who] got us into Iraq." When the president was irritated with his former chief of staff, John Kelly, the president's press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, declared that Kelly "was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great president.

When I say there was a reality TV show mentality to our administration, I’m not kidding. And I am ashamed to say that I lost sight of what I was there to do—serve the country—more than once. That was life with Donald Trump.

two things were often weaponized and used against people in the Trump administration, even if there was no reason: the security clearance process and the launch of internal investigations. Either could be deadly to a person’s reputation, and the news of them often leaked to sympathetic reporters in the press. All anyone had to do to launch such an attack was mention inappropriate behavior to an allied senior staff person and an investigation was opened, which in turn could cost the person accused his or her security clearance or even job. The outcome of the investigation was often beside the point. Just being “under investigation” hurt your reputation inside and outside the building.

He didn’t ask if the guy was all right, though. As far as I know, that never crossed his mind.

It is my fervent belief that when you are the common denominator in situations like this, you need to look within and determine where your own responsibility lies. People need to hold themselves accountable to situations so that they can learn from them and apply them in the next chapter of life, and that includes me. I

I loved it and was shocked at all of the similarities between President Trump and Norma Desmond, the lead character in the movie, who was a former silent-film star obsessed with her looks and with making a triumphant return to the screen. Here was a woman who was convinced that everyone loved her and lived in a fantasy world of her own making. I’m sure that Trump had no clue—like none—how similar to him she was.

And he said that the country was granting more liberties to women, which he supported. I looked at him as he said that with an expression that was captured in a White House photo by an Associated Press reporter. It was a look of “I don’t know if I believe you, dude.” But he seemed sincere, and I wanted to believe him. Still, what did I know? Saudi Arabia is a savage place for women.

I had shared with Mrs. Trump many times my opinion that if we lost reelection in 2020 it would be because of Jared. She didn’t disagree with me. It was my fervent opinion that his arrogance and presumption had grown over the years, and he threw his power about with absolutely no shame. I would venture to say that being in the White House changed Jared as a person. There was no reason that he should be sitting with the speechwriter laying out our nation’s plan to fight a global pandemic.

Jared, who had appointed himself the expert on every problem—from the border wall to trade policy to an unprecedented global pandemic—suddenly claimed that he’d had nothing to do with the mess that was made. I cannot believe I ever found the guy attractive, sincere, or kind. By

For a communications person, especially if you actually like politics, White House press secretary is the pinnacle of your profession. In any other administration, if you reach that milestone, you were pretty much guaranteed a lucrative job at a large company, in addition to TV contributor contracts, and speaking engagements once the administration went out. But the Trump White House was different—which may be the biggest understatement ever written.

When we traveled to Davos, Trump marveled about the country of Switzerland, which was clean, orderly, and full of rich people—very much his kind of scene. President Germophobe gushed to Swiss president Ueli Maurer, “Everything here is so clean. My hotel room is spotless.

That was how Trump always got rid of people—behind their back with leaks to the press or on Twitter.

For those who care to know, Mrs. Trump “slapped” her husband’s hand away that day because she thought it was against protocol to hold hands at such a formal ceremony. Melania was a rule follower, sometimes to a fault, and her husband knew that. He often tried to hold her hand or messed with her hands on purpose in front of the cameras to irritate her. I found it amusing, but the press never seemed to like that explanation, even when I offered it.

If this were me, I’d be having a hard time right now.” She just shrugged, though. “This is Donald’s problem,” she told me. “He got himself into this mess. He can fix it by himself.” I marveled at that kind of attitude, still do. Because it is completely correct—when a person cheats, it is his or her own problem, nothing that the other person did.

Mrs. Trump could not control her husband and truly had only the best intentions for children. But nobody seemed to care about that.

Casual dishonesty filtered through the White House as though it were in the air-conditioning system.

In fact, this book may be the first and only time anyone has told President Trump that a corpse and a dog flew inside Air Force One, at the same time, on his watch.

In an administration careening from crisis to crisis, the best way to look good was to be seen as putting out fires—even if you’d lit them yourself.

I was up front that I would still want to work for Mrs. Trump. Not only did I like the job and had grown comfortable in the role, I had a stupid-ass idea in my head that I’d be able to change the president’s mind on things or do things differently because he would know I had a direct line to his wife.

This is not a book, by the way, where you need to like me. I am not trying to win people over or gain moral absolution. But I do think this is something people need to read because I observed a truly unique, scary, bizarre, often funny, riotous, wild, and at times tragic period in our country’s history. I

Trump always wanted to see how far you would go to do his bidding; it was his way of measuring your loyalty. And it was hard when you were caught in the middle of something like that to keep your bearings. I remembered that lesson when I took over as press secretary and resolved to do whatever I could to avoid having Trump do to me what he’d done to Sean. I wasn’t always successful, but I tried.

Because we had alienated so many of the “normal” Republicans in Washington, a lot of them were either unwilling to join the administration or were put on some do-not-hire list by someone in Trump World.

superspreader event” in the White House

No one was wearing a mask—not the president, not Fauci, not Birx. There was no social distancing.

very common procedure

They’d kept telling me that I was crazy, I was psycho, I was emotional, and I couldn’t believe my own eyes and ears.

We had nothing new to announce, but that didn’t seem to matter to them, and I had been around long enough to know that there was no use trying to sway that particular group.

Jared Kushner at your door was sort of like a visit by the Grim Reaper—he always brought trouble and escaped without a scratch.

To this day I don’t know why that trip was so important to Jared,

You can feel sorry for yourself or angry for only so long.

I got shocked off of a ladder; I didn’t know that you need to turn the electricity off first.

I know all of this, because that is what we did to everyone else who decided to tell their truth or who stood up against things they thought were wrong. It is what I did, personally, to many people because it is the Trump formula: when you’re in, you’re in, and when you’re out—you’re denied and then destroyed.

I liked them and I disliked them and I miss them and I hope I never see them again.

Fundamentally, Trump wanted to impress reporters. Maybe, he seemed to think, they would start to write good things about him again.

That was my first lesson that these guys played for keeps.

Trump allies grumbled about having too many “RNC people” moving into the White House (especially because the RNC had basically left Trump for dead after the Access Hollywood scandal),

A big part of why he won was his commitment to cutting through bureaucracy, running his affairs like a successful business, and bucking tradition. The only problem with that plan was exactly what made the campaign so great: it was too small, and it broke too many norms. Once we got into office, we were overwhelmed by the size and scope of the federal government and how many professionals it takes to run it.

Saudi Arabia in May 2017 was the dust and the way Mrs. Trump looked when she emerged from the plane. It is my very favorite outfit that she ever wore—and that is saying a lot.

Saudi Arabia is a savage place for women.

When there were issues that burnished her image, she was involved as official staff. When she wanted to distance herself from any of the president’s controversies, she was just his daughter.

I think after this impeachment is over I will take the job,

As much as I absolutely did not want to say it and it was certainly not in my voice at all, I was the spokesperson for the president of the United States, so in my mind it was my job to say what I had been told to say, word for word: “I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great president.” Even thinking about that now, years later, I cover my eyes with shame. I’m sorry, General and Mrs. Kelly, that I didn’t have the nerve to say no. It is one of my biggest regrets.

many Trump scandals and conspiracies—tool of the Russians, Charlottesville, Stormy Daniels, “shithole” countries, Sharpiegate, Ukraine, tax returns, Trump Foundation, and on and on—that I don’t think people could keep track of them all.

imagine being a subject matter expert in the Trump administration and there was a meeting on your subject, something you knew more about than anyone else, something you’d slaved away for months on to come up with a coherent workable plan, and no one told you the meeting was happening while decisions were made by people with a tenth of your expertise on the subject. Well, welcome to the Trump White House. That’s how we rolled.

I’d had more than my fill of Jared and his stupid sayings. Did I mention his sayings earlier? Well, the first was “POTUS makes the waves. We just ride them.

I stopped waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel and lit that bitch myself.

Mrs. Trump still may not know.

don’t plan to.

the people who surrounded the Trumps from the very beginning. In short, many of them were wealthy grifters from New York, people who claimed to know what they were doing and made huge promises they couldn’t deliver.

she might look as though she was in a costume, as though we had dressed her up as Safari Barbie.

But maybe he just meant

another free-for-all, with the president generally going with the advice offered by the last person he had talked to.

What I’ve learned from my time in government

Kellyanne Conway is one of the strongest and most cunning people I know.

That observation may seem obvious, I know, but up close she is even more stunning. Because I know everyone is wondering, she even smelled incredible.

most powerful man in the world.

tanning bed in the White House. There wasn’t, and I would know. The president’s look was created with makeup that he put on his face every morning,

one of her five languages (English, Slovenian, French, German, and Italian).

the Trump White House, where everything was like a clown car on fire running at full speed into a warehouse full of fireworks.

The two sides of the wall are separated by sex,

we visited the Cape Coast Castle, one of around forty “slave castles” that had served as prisons for slaves en route to the Americas. We were greeted by a tour guide, who walked Mrs. Trump through many rooms and told stories of how the slave trade had begun. We were shown a room that had held hundreds of men and women, with tiny windows that barely let in light. There was a small ditch dug down the middle of the room, maybe six inches deep and wide, and it was explained to us that it had been used as a bathroom. Each room was horrible, and the tour guide was brilliant in the way he told us the grim and heartbreaking story of the way the people kept there had lived. And when I say brilliant, I mean that he told it in a way that we almost lived it—we felt their pain, their misery, almost understood what it must have been like to be treated as cattle. The thought that human beings were held in such horrific conditions until they were placed on ships in the middle of the night, only to live in even worse conditions until they arrived at their destination, was hard to stomach. There were rooms for the women that were equally as brutal. We stopped at an altar to pay tribute to all those who had lost their lives and those who had lived under such cruel circumstances. I remember feeling distinctly ashamed that that had ever been allowed to happen and about our country’s complicity, since so many of the people had been shipped to the United States. Mrs. Trump felt deeply impacted as well. In conversations later that day she said, “I did not know. The conditions were so horrible. Did you see the rooms? How can people do that? Everyone should see these things, and we should talk about it openly.” We all, of course, knew about and abhorred slavery, but were less familiar with all the details of its brutal origins. The emotional visit concluded with Mrs. Trump walking through the “door of no return,” the door that the people had left through to be loaded onto ships to be taken to the various countries that used slave labor.

At that point on the trip, I was starting to get as fed up with her behavior as the rest of the East Wing team was. Ivanka was constantly getting into the press shots that truly should have been reserved for the president and first lady. It was yet another example of the Kushners putting themselves on the same level as the first couple, and it was unseemly. For Mrs. Trump, it was about protocol and the rules; for all of us as staff, it was about allowing her to be in her role and have the people of the United States see her representing them with dignity and class.

An address to the nation is serious stuff, and whenever possible you need plenty of time to prepare properly—unless, of course, you were in the Trump White House, where everything was like a clown car on fire running at full speed into a warehouse full of fireworks. A

I also turned a blind eye toward my own falling into a trap I saw over and over again: believing I was a trusted and valued member of Trump World. The plain truth is that most of the Trump family dismisses and cuts people from their lives on a whim. They demand total loyalty, but they are loyal to no one. I don’t blame them, to be honest.

While at the school in Malawi, the children had kept asking us to take photos of them on our phones so that they could see what they looked like. Suffice it to say, we were all surprised that many people there did not own mirrors and so the children literally didn’t know what they looked like. As soon as we returned to the United States, she wanted us to send full-length mirrors to the school. “We need to send the school mirrors. Children need to know what they look like and see that they are very strong or very beautiful.” She was insistent that the children should be able to look at themselves and know their self-worth.

And less than a week after General Kelly resigned, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis resigned with a scorching letter to the president that got a ton of attention. So now we’d have a second defense secretary in two years. But that was a whole other drama that I wasn’t really in on.

It was my first direct glimpse of what would become the constant issue of “Javanka” blurring the lines between staff and family and wanting whatever suited them best at the time. It seemed to me that whenever it suited her, Ivanka wanted to be treated as a senior staff expert on whatever issue caught her attention and resented being dismissed as the president’s daughter. At other times, she’d want just the opposite.

For the rest of my time in the White House, the president would describe his former national security advisor as unstable, crazy, dangerous, or wanting to start a war. (He also used to say that John Kelly “really sucked.”) That was what Trump did to anyone who left on unsatisfactory terms. It never occurred to him that perhaps that reflected on his hiring practices or that months before he had been singing their praises.

Trump seemed fixated on dictators, too. It almost seemed as if he admired their toughness and aggression,