Tag Archives: Stephanie Grisham

national news

Grisham owns it … good!

I want to give Stephanie Grisham some points for coming clean on a key matter involving her time serving in the Trump administration.

She owns the mistake she made in refusing to speak out in real time what she was witnessing while serving as White House press secretary and as chief of staff to the first lady.

Grisham, who’s written a reportedly stunning tell-all book about her time in the White House, also said today that her boss — the 45th POTUS — is “unfit for office” and she hopes fervently he never darkens the White House door ever again.

She spoke of the Secret Service code name for Melania Trump; the agents referred to her as “Rapunzel,” named after the fictitious character who was afraid to leave the castle. Melania Trump reportedly spent most of her time in the White House residence because, according to Grisham, she dared not venture out to be seen by the public or the dreaded media.

Listening to her discuss her book, though, filled me with a bit of admiration for a public figure who is willing to own her mistakes. She said she was wrong to keep quiet about the Trump chaos as it was occurring. I accept that acknowledgment as an apology.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

No support for Trump acolytes

I said the other day I had no intention of buying Stephanie Grisham’s book on the Donald Trump administration.

Here is why. I do not want to spend any of my money to fatten the wallets of the 45th president’s administrative aides. Grisham, sad to say, fits into that category.

She served as communication director and press secretary for the White House; she also served as first lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff. She has written a book with some pretty stunning accounts of what she saw at the White House. She writes about the president’s explosive temper, discloses the Secret Service code name for the first lady and tells of how first daughter Ivanka Trump talked Daddy into delivering a COVID-19 speech on national TV that went quite badly.

That’s all I need to hear from her or from any of the other goofballs who worked for the ex-POTUS.

There you have it. I’m out.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

WH press flack leaves No. 2 most thankless job in D.C.

Stephanie Grisham no longer is the White House press secretary.

As if she ever made her presence even remotely known in that capacity. She’s gone to work as head of the first lady’s staff. Fine. See ya, Ms. Grisham.

It’s my considered opinion that the White House press flack’s job ranks a close second to the No. 1 most thankless job in Washington, that of White House chief of staff.

I mean, really. Donald Trump cannot be controlled, or guided, or counseled to say and do the right thing. Mark Meadows is now the White House chief of staff, replacing the former acting COS, Mick Mulvaney who, to the best of my knowledge, has gone into hiding in private life. Mulvaney took the acting job after Trump canned he former chief of staff, John Kelly, who took over from Reince Priebus, whom Trump had fired in an earlier staff purge.

Meadows will have his hands full, although he’s demonstrated great loyalty to Trump based on his time serving in the House of Representatives and defending Trump through various crises of confidence, competence and conspiracy.

Now it’s Grisham who’s gone.

She didn’t conduct a single White House press briefing during her time as presidential flack. As ABC News White House correspondent Jon Karl noted this morning, she likely never set foot in the White House press briefing room.

So, it’s fair to ask: What the hell was she doing? And more to the point, what in the world are we taxpayers — you and I — paying for?

Trump is now mired up to his chins in the coronavirus pandemic. He needs a spokesman or woman who can “clarify” his misstatements and outright lies. Good luck finding anyone with an ounce of integrity to fill that post, Mr. President.

Weird.

national news

POTUS steps into the Twitter sewer … once again!

You know, as weird as Donald Trump’s retweet of an image involving House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer was, it seems to almost pale in comparison to the White House press flack’s lame defense of what Trump actually did.

Trump retweeted a doctored picture of Pelosi wearing a Muslim hijab and Schumer wearing a turban. They’re standing in front of an image depicting the Iranian flag. It is captioned “Democrats 2020.”

Trump sought to make some sort of statement about Democrats’ criticism of the air strike that killed Iranian terrorist leader Qassem Soleimani, suggesting that Democrats are soft on those who inflict terrorism on the rest of the world.

Well, of course that is a preposterous claim. Democrats, moreover, haven’t been “mourning” Soleimani’s death.

But then came White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham to defend Trump’s hideous behavior. According to CBS.com: “I think the president is making clear that Democrats have been parroting Iranian talking points, and almost taking the side of terrorists and those who were out to kill Americans … I think the president was making the point that Democrats seem to hate him so much that they’re willing to be on the side of countries and leadership of countries who want to kill Americans.”

Uh, no, Ms. Grisham. Democrats aren’t “on the side of countries” that want to “kill Americans.” They are questioning the intelligence and whether the White House gave enough thought to the consequences of such a significant act.

How about stopping the demagoguery, Ms. Grisham? As for the president, how about … oh, never mind. I’m wasting my time.

media news, national news

WH press secretaries: from bad to worse to utterly abysmal

I never thought I would see the day when a White House press secretary could make Sean Spicer look good.

Consider this:

Spicer was the first White House press flack hired by Donald Trump. Spicer “distinguished” himself at his first press briefing by challenging media reports about the size of Trump’s inaugural crowd, contending that the president drew the largest such gathering in the nation’s history. It didn’t go well for Spicer after that. He resigned and now he’s on “Dancing With the Stars.”

Sarah Huckabee Sanders succeeded Spicer and became a shill for the serial liar who hired her. Sanders ended up suspending the White House press briefings altogether. She quit, too.

Now we have Stephanie Grisham, who this weekend said that former White House chief of staff John Kelly was — get ready for this one! — “totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great president.”

Wow, man!

The “genius” of Donald Trump? She’s saying the president is a “genius”? The guy who cannot spell his way out of a third-grade lunchroom? The individual who conducts presidential policy nearly exclusively via Twitter? The candidate who launches into nonsensical, irrational, incoherent tirades at campaign rallies? The guy who cannot string two sentences together?

I know next to nothing about Stephanie Grisham, other than she has yet to answer questions in a roomful of reporters assigned to cover the White House.

Her statement about John Kelly — the decorated combat veteran, the retired four-star Marine Corps general, the Gold Star dad whose son died in combat in Afghanistan — confirms to me that her bulb is as dim as the one burning inside the skull of the president.