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On the eve of the debut of herexplosive tell-all, Stephanie Grisham says she has regrets about serving inDonald Trump’s White House.
Grisham, 45, is the author ofI’ll Take Your Questions Now, which has been grabbing headlines for its accounts ofMelania Trump’s attitudes and actions as first lady as well as howJared KushnerandIvanka Trumpfunctioned as senior advisors to the president.
In an appearance Monday onGood Morning America,George Stephanopoulos asked Grisham, who served as Trump’s press secretary, about her part in the alleged culture of dishonesty she describes in her book.
“You were … enabling that culture, weren’t you?” Stephanopoulos asked.
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“Yes, I was,” Grisham replied. “And I’ve reflected on that and I regret that. Especially now when watching him, and so many people, push the false election narrative. I now want to, in whatever way I can, educate the public about the behaviors within the White House because it does look like he’s going to try to run in 2024.”
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With the book out Tuesday, Grisham said she worries about a second term for Trump and what he might do if he returns to the White House.
“I want to just warn people that once he takes office if he were to win, he doesn’t have to worry about reelection anymore,” she said. “He will be about revenge. There will be some pretty draconian policies that go on.”
Stephanie Grisham.Alex Wong/Getty Images
She briefly described conversations in which advisors pushed back on certain policy suggestions, saying, “that will be the second term.”
Grisham resigned from the Trump White House, where she alsoserved as the first lady’s chief of staff, on Jan. 6, hours after the attack on the U.S. Capitol with only days remaining in Trump’s term.
“You stayed until the final two weeks,” Stephanopoulos said, “what took you so long?”
“That’s a fair question and it’s a complicated question,” Grisham said, explaining that she considered herself a “true believer and a true loyalist” when she first joined the effort to elect Trump to the presidency. “I liked the way that he was truly giving a voice to people who felt forgotten.”
Gisham said it was when she began working in the West Wing — she’d previously served the first lady in the East Wing — that she “began to see what it was really like, and I regretted that decision immediately.”
Stephanie Grisham.Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
She admitted that she and many others got caught up in the climate she described within the Trump administration. “Many of us, myself included, got into that White House, and got heady with power,” Grisham said. “We didn’t think about serving the country anymore, it was about surviving in there.”
In a previous statement to PEOPLE, Mrs. Trump’s office said of Grisham’s book: “The intent behind this book is obvious. It is an attempt to redeem herself after a poor performance as Press Secretary, failed personal relationships, and unprofessional behavior in the White House. Through mistruth and betrayal, she seeks to gain relevance and money at the expense of Mrs. Trump.”
“I have no illusions right now that people are suddenly going to think I’m some hero,” she told Stephanopoulos. “That’s not what this is about. This has not been a fun process for me … the left doesn’t like me; the right doesn’t like me. But I have gone back to basics. I have my family and I have my friends. People can take this book for what it is — it’s honest, and that’s all I can say.”
source: people.com
