- Former White House press secretary
Stephanie Grisham says it was a mistake to work for Trump. - Grisham told "Good Morning America" she "regretted that decision immediately" when she became press secretary.
- Grisham's tell-all memoir "I'll Take Your Questions" will be published on October 5.
Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said on Monday that working for President
ABC's George Stephanopoulos interviewed Grisham on "Good Morning America," one day before the publication of her memoir, "I'll Take Your Questions Now," which describes a dysfunctional, chaotic, and toxic environment in the White House and offers damning portraits of her former bosses.
"You detail four years of toxicity, abuses of power, a culture of casual dishonesty, but you stayed until the final two weeks. What took you so long?" Stephanopoulos asked Grisham, who left the White House after the January 6 Capitol insurrection.
"That's a fair question, and it's a complicated question," Grisham said, adding that she came into Trump's 2016 campaign as a "true believer." She said started in the White House in the East Wing working for former first lady Melania Trump "shielded" her from the "toxicity" of Trump.
"When I went to the West Wing is when I actually started to see what it was really like, and I regretted that decision immediately," she told Stephanopoulos.
Later in the interview, Stephanopoulos directly asked: "Was it a mistake to work for President Trump?"
"Yes," Grisham responded.
Grisham said she chose to work in the White House because Trump "gave voice to a lot of people who did feel forgotten."
"Many of us, myself included, who got into that White House got heady with power and became really - we didn't think about serving the country anymore, it was about surviving in there," she said.
Grisham added that she has "no illusions" that people will think she's "some hero" for speaking out now, saying coming out with the book "has not been a fun process for me."
-Good Morning America (@GMA) October 4, 2021
Both Trump and Melania have denounced Grisham as a disgruntled former employee seeking a payday and sought to discredit the claims in her book.
In a new Monday statement, Melania's office blasted Grisham for "desperately trying to rehabilitate her tarnished reputation by manipulating and distorting the truth about Mrs.Trump," calling Grisham "a deceitful and troubled individual who doesn't deserve anyone's trust."
"I expected that, I expect more. This is out of their playbook," Grisham told Stephanopoulos. "I think she knows that I have a lot of receipts to show I'm being fully honest."