In five years as a senior aide to Donald Trump and Melania Trump, Stephanie Grisham was perhaps their most intimate strength during the White House.
Grisham outlines these points in detail in her forthcoming memoir, I'll Take Your Questions Now. CNN obtained an early version of the book and will release it on Tuesday. The book also reveals her take on the former First Lady, who is widely regarded as the most private and unknown person in modern American political history.
Grisham, who served as Melania Trump's communications director and chief of staff, recounted these experiences — from interpreting Trump's marriage to Melania Trump's relationship with stepdaughter Ivanka Trump; She has a bit of a lazy work ethic; And a predilection for photo albums – revealing new insights into melania Trump's thought.
In a statement provided to the media earlier this week, Donald Trump said: "It's too bad that garbage pack publishers continue to report on this very boring garbage. We and the MAGA movement have become completely accustomed to it. One day in the near future, we will have our own voice and be treated fairly by the media. ”
His spokesman, Liz Harrington, added: "This book is yet another sad attempt to take advantage of the president and sell lies about the Trump family."
The media has contacted Melania Trump's office to ask them to comment on Grisham's book.
On Tuesday morning, Melania Trump's office blamed Grisham in a statement sent to The Washington Post.
"The intent behind this book is clear," Melania Trump's office said in a statement to The Washington Post. "It was an attempt to save herself after her poor performance as press secretary, failed relationships, and unprofessional white house performance," she said. Through mistrust and betrayal, she tried to gain relevance and money at the expense of Mrs. Trump. ”
Melania Trump, like Donald Trump, obsessively reads her own media
Melania Trump, who often appears in public as first lady, doesn't hint much or reveal anything other than her indifferent, sometimes unsmiling face. The impression is that she really doesn't care and doesn't want to be bothered by what the American public— especially the media— thinks of her.
However, according to Grisham, this is not the case.
Melania Trump loves to read every little thing about her, persistently and frequently. "Like her husband and all his children, Mrs. Trump scrutinized her newspaper clippings like a professional architect focused on blueprints," Grisham wrote. Nothing was overlooked, nothing leaked out of her eyes. She set up Google alerts for herself and saw everything. ”
As her spokesperson, Grisham receives multiple text messages from the first lady every day, many of which are about how to respond — or more accurately, how not to respond — for a global news outlet obsessed with understanding the mysteries of the first lady.
Melania Trump, aka "Rapunzel," left the White House
Grisham also wrote in her own experience that she spends too little time with her boss. Not one-on-one with Melania Trump in the East Wing of the White House, but Melania Trump really in the office on the East Wing of the White House.
Grisham said she recalled that during her four years at the White House, "only a few times" she saw her boss in a spacious office suite designated for the first lady.
"Mrs. Trump worked from home much earlier than in the United States," Grisham joked, referring to the remote work habits of most Americans in the COVID-19 era. "We would have face-to-face meetings if necessary, but usually in the map room across the elevator to the house. There, we plan a timeline, answer pressing questions, and discuss goals. In addition to this, the First Lady had been staying in the room of the official residence. ”
Melania Trump is often quarantined at the presidential residence, Grisham said, and the Secret Service gave her the nickname Rapunzel because she stayed in her building and never came down." ”
Grisham wrote that Melania Trump spends a lot of time "self-care," including many hours of sleep. (Most of the time, Grisham said, employees at the East Wing rarely hear from their bosses by 10 a.m.) )
"She believes relaxation is at the heart of beauty regimens, and of course, spas and facials are at the heart of what is going on," Grisham writes.
Grisham also said trump's main "job" during his time at the White House was that she spent a lot of time making rich and detailed photo albums that the public didn't see. Grisham said hundreds of photos she took during her time at the White House were carefully studied, categorized and painstakingly put into photo albums. Keeping photo albums was a long-standing hobby of the former first lady.
Melania Trump calls Ivanka a "princess"
According to Grisham's book, there is no love between Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump, the two most important women in Donald Trump's life.
While the rift between the two is largely not seen by the public, behind the scenes, tensions exist between them, often because Ivanka Trump wants to be the center of public attention at public events and foreign visits. When she became aware of the delicate relationship, Grisham wrote, Melania Trump let her know that she liked to call her nickname behind her back: Princess. (Grisham, in turn, told the former first lady that this was the nickname that many White House staff had given to Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner: "Intern.") )
Trump's anger toward her stepdaughter often shines on foreign trips, Grisham wrote, largely because the former first lady was a student of a protocol and insisted on adhering to tradition in each country reserved only for one president and first-time spouse, rather than the president's daughter and her husband.
In particular, according to Grisham, when Ivanka Trump wanted to participate in Trump's visit to the Queen of England at Buckingham Palace, Melania Trump adamantly opposed, insisting that Ivanka and Jared not be in the spotlight. Instead, the two were photographed watching from a window at Buckingham Palace when Melania Trump laughed and talked to the Queen and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
Melania Trump is outraged by the so-called extramarital emotions that break the news cycle
Although the media reported the news at the time, the White House never formally confirmed that Melania Trump traveled alone from her husband in a convoy to her 2018 State of the Union address and traveled to Joint Base Andrews as she angered Donald Trump over allegations of infidelity surrounding actress Stomi Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDough.
In her book, Grisham writes that Melania Trump is indeed frustrated, and her anger has led her to distance herself from her husband in public. Melania Trump doesn't like to be seen as a political spouse trying to save her husband from the negative press — the opposite, according to Grisham.
"I think Mrs. Trump is embarrassed, and she wants him to be embarrassed too. I don't know if he's capable of doing that," Grisham said of the Daniels affair. She said the Daniels affair made Melania bolder and more confident.
"I got a call from her telling me she wanted to go to Air Force One before her husband. She took me by surprise, and she said, "I don't want to be like Hillary Clinton, do you know what I mean?" and after Monica Lewinsky's scandal broke out, she and her husband walked hand in hand to Marine One, and it looked like things weren't going well. I didn't object," wrote Grisham, who helped arrange logistics to facilitate Trump's request.
In addition, at the request of Melania Trump, Grisham and another staff member also "procured" a "beautiful aide" who accompanied the first lady to the State of the Union address at the White House Military Office. "Mrs. Trump called to let me know that she wanted an aide from our military to accompany her to the Capitol because the floor was too slippery," Writeerson wrote, who felt the request was a scheming handsome, uniformed young man — a vision that might annoy her husband. "I laughed to myself because I've seen the woman walking on dirt roads in high heels."
Melania Trump and jackets
Grisham spent quite a bit of time — an entire chapter in her book — deciphering the "jacket," the infamous green coat with the words "I really don't care" on the back. Melania Trump's clothes she wears when she visits an immigration center in Texas.
In short, Grisham didn't really explain why the former first lady chose to wear the jacket on her trip to and from Texas, writing that she knew nothing about Melania Trump's decision, as did everyone else. Grisham did say, however, that she did think Melania Trump did not understand or care about the huge criticism she received because she was wearing a jacket with very insensitive messages written on it, while also promoting a cause that was very concerned about the country at the time.
As soon as the photo of the jacket came to light, Grisham said, the first lady was on a plane flying back from Texas back to Washington, with Melania Trump huddled in her private cabin, trying to divert media attention. Grisham wrote in the conversation that Melania Trump suggested drawing a circle around the "no" part of the jacket and drawing a line — ostensibly turning it into "I really care" — and then claiming that the media had misread it.
Grisham dissuaded her.
When first lady and Grisham returned to the White House, negative news followed, and the president at the time was clearly unhappy about it. ”
When Grisham was called to wait for them at the president's private restaurant in the West Wing of the White House, he wrote. He looked at his wife angrily and then at us again. The president's first words were," "What the hell are you thinking?"
Grisham wrote, "To my surprise, Mrs. Trump sat in the chair to his right (she was still wearing that damn jacket, by the way), smiling. ”