Stephanie Grisham spox
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gone for a while, no WH press conf? rare one for corona
this will now be generic to WH press
interesting women spox ~ jan 6
spox sg
https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/stephanie-grisham-trump/
gleefully rewind jan 6
an 9 24
Recoiled in fear': Trump’s former officials serve up damning responses to his Iran claims
David Badash October 01, 2024
Just before Iran launched an expected missile attack on Israel Tuesday, Donald Trump made wild and false claims, insisting if he were President the attack “would not have happened,” while also falsely claiming Iran never launched any attacks during his lone term in the White House. But top former Trump administration officials are rebutting those claims.
“The World is on fire and spiraling out of control,” Trump said in statement posted to his Truth Social account, titled: “Statement from President Donald J. Trump on the Iranian Terror Regime’s Imminent Attack on Israel.”
After attacking both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump falsely said: “When I was President, Iran was in total check. They were starved for cash, fully contained, and desperate to make a deal. Kamala flooded them with American cash and, ever since, they’ve been exporting terror all over, and unraveling the Middle East. Under ‘President Trump,’ we had NO WAR in the Middle East, NO WAR in Europe, and Harmony in Asia, No Inflation, No Afghanistan Catastrophe. Instead, we had PEACE.”
He also claimed (in all caps), “This war was totally preventable. It should have never happened. If I were president, it would not have happened!”
READ MORE: ‘The Women Thing’: Harris Campaign Hits Trump for Saying Killing Roe v. Wade Was ‘Great’
NBC News’ Senior Capitol Hill Correspondent Garrett Haake late Tuesday morning, just before the Iranian strike on Israel, reported Trump told him: “They should not do it. It would be a big mistake if they do,” and, “They have no respect for the administration. This would have never happened if I was president.”
Alexander Vindman, the former Trump National Security Council Director for European Affairs for the United States, responded, alleging Trump was fearful of Iran while he was President.
“Iran struck first and early, during Trump’s presidency attacking US troops. Trump consistently recoiled in fear inviting further attacks. Trump also set the table for Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine by his abuse of power, resulting in his first impeachment & his friendship with dictators & weakening of alliances. We are in a more dangerous world,” he added, appearing to suggest because of “Trump’s first term.”
Vindman was not alone in fact-checking Trump.
READ MORE: Biden Calls Trump a ‘Liar’ as Administration Hits Back Over False Helene Response Attacks
Stephanie Grisham, Trump’s former White House press secretary and White House communications director, responded to another claim Trump made on Truth Social: “Look at the World today — Look at the missiles flying right now in the Middle East, look at what’s happening with Russia/Ukraine, look at Inflation destroying the World. NONE OF THIS HAPPENED WHILE I WAS PRESIDENT!”
Grisham wrote: “Fact check: In 2020, Iran fired ballistic missiles at US forces in retaliation for the Soleimani assassination. 110 US service members got traumatic brain injuries. Many Admin officials remain on an Iranian hit list today.”
Vindman followed up his post with others.
“Trump is chaos!” he wrote. “Trump did not/ will not deliver security, geopolitical stability, or economic prosperity!!”
“Would Trump be defending Israeli skies right now or would he be asking how much are you going to pay me for protection. We don’t have to guess, he will ask for protection money,” Vindman, a national security expert, also alleged.
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officially no press conf?
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replaced by
trump’s New Press Secretary’s Troubling Remarks
Kayleigh McEnany, the latest Trump White House press secretary, has made troubling remarks downplaying the coronavirus pandemic and claiming former President Barack Obama is not from the United States.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/trumps-newest-chief-of-staff-mark-meadows-is-already-facing-damaging-leaks-from-white-house-staffers/
no lnx
Trump’s newest chief of staff Mark Meadows is already facing damaging leaks from White House staffers
Written by Travis Gettys / Raw Story April 9, 2020
President Donald Trump’s new White House chief of staff is already in hot water after just a couple of weeks on the job.
Mark Meadows, who resigned from Congress in late March to begin work in the White House, quickly pushed out legislative liaison Mike McKenna and then replaced press secretary Stephanie Grisham — and other aides could soon be on their way out, reported Bloomberg.
The North Carolina Republican has also ruffled feathers by calling Republican governors who have resisted issuing stay-at-home orders and asking them to do so immediately, according to two people familiar with the calls.
The president has said those decisions are the responsibility of individual governors and has not publicly criticized those who held out — all of them Republicans — and it’s not clear whether Meadows had his blessing to make the calls.
Meadows has ratcheted up tensions in a White House known for infighting and frequent turnover, according to multiple sources.
Two sources told Bloomberg that Meadows told Grisham over the weekend that he wanted her to give up the press secretary job and serve only as communications director, but she declined.
Grisham stepped down and returned to her job as first lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff.
Top aides say they are trying to work with Meadows but complained that he didn’t spend enough time learning how the West Wing works before making changes.
Meadows also pushed out Jessica Ditto, who had worked for Trump since 2016 and was the primary spokeswoman for Ivanka Trump.
One source said aides have gone to Meadows to suggest other staffers to push out, which has raised anxiety and damaged morale.
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3/22
dunno if there but...
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| Pro-Trump OAN pushes wild conspiracy theory that novel coronavirus was created in a North Carolina lab |
Pro-Trump cable news network OAN aired a special "investigative" look into the novel coronavirus and COVID-19. The network’s chief White House correspondent, Chanel Rion, suggested that the novel coronavirus responsible for the current pandemic may have originated in a North Carolina laboratory. As support, Rion cited Greg Rubini, whom she described in the special as “a citizen investigator and monitored source amongst a certain set in the D.C. intelligence community.” There is no evidence that Rubini is a “monitored source” for anyone but Rion. He has pushed QAnon conspiracy theories about the “deep state” on Twitter. Rubini also preposterously suggested that Dr. Anthony Fauci funded the creation of the novel coronavirus and that Trump's political opponents spread it around the world, from China to Italy to back to the United States. This is obviously a totally bananas conspiracy theory -- but it's one the network fell for. This would be bad enough, but the Trump White House has credentialed the networked as well. And on Wednesday, Trump called on Rion during a White House briefing, where she asked if the phrase "Chinese food" was racist, and accused the rest of the media of “siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals, and Latin gangs and cartels.” Shortly after making a mockery of a public briefing in the middle of a pandemic that could kill millions, Rion said that China was making an "odd" accusation that the novel coronavirus was created in the United States -- the same conspiracy theory that Rion herself had endorsed just days earlier. This isn't going to end, either: On Saturday, Trump again called on OAN and used its question to attack The Washington Post. |
| Featured Media |
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Absolutely outrageous’: White House bars press from filming or recording coronavirus briefing
"We need transparency. Instead we are getting this."
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White House goes 300+ days without a press briefing. Here’s why that’s unprecedented
Charles Bierbauer, The Conversation
A longtime White House reporter describes what's lost when the relationship between the press and the president is bad and once-routine press briefings aren't held.
https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/white-house-responds-to-acquittal-by-floating-vengeance-threat-at-adam-schiff/
...White House is out with a first official response to the Senate’s refusal to remove Donald Trump from office. It is mostly the usual claims of “witch hunt” and “full validation” and “exoneration” and a burping out of Trump’s supposed “victories” and accomplishments. It refers to Sen. Mitt Romney only as “one failed Republican presidential candidate.”
But this section is the most noteworthy:
Rep. Adam Schiff lied to Congress and the American people with a totally made up statement about the president’s phone call. Will there be no retribution?
Is that a threat? How could it not be considered one?
While attributed to the still-possibly fictional “press secretary” Stephanie Grisham, these are clearly Trump’s own words. He wrote this. And it does not appear (Susan Collins’ imagination notwithstanding) that this White House has taken anything from the exposure of Trump’s extortion, other than a new zealousness for “retribution” against Dear Leader’s critics.
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/press-secretary-says-it-is-dangerous-for-the-country-to-question-whether-shes-putting-out-honest-info
... Stephanie Grisham on Saturday argued it was “dangerous for the country” for anyone to challenge the veracity of her claims.
Grisham made her argument after President Donald Trump went to Walter Reed Hospital for an unannounced doctor’s visit, resulting in a great deal of speculation.
Following the visit, Grisham claimed Trump was “healthy” and “without complaints” — a claim many found unlikely as the president has spent a good deal of time as president airing his many grievances.
“Further speculation beyond the extensive & honest info I put out is wholly irresponsible & dangerous for the country,” Grisham argued.
Here is some of the speculation that may have raised Grisham’s ire:
...
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mma 1119
Since becoming White House press secretary on July 1, Stephanie Grisham has held zero press briefings. Instead, Grisham has found the time to grant interviews to some of President Donald Trump’s favorite current and former Fox News hosts.
It is not new that Grisham appears on Fox News, or that Grisham tells pro-Trump lies. Sarah Sanders certainly did both quite a bit while she held the office.
But it is new that Grisham appears virtually only on Fox News.
Grisham's particular innovation is to move the entire office of White House press secretary into the world of Fox News and Fox-adjacent media. After giving her first TV interview to Sinclair’s Eric Bolling (who was fired by Fox for sending unsolicited explicit photos to coworkers), Grisham has given seven interviews to Fox News -- including last night with Jeanine Pirro. Instead of actually briefing the press at the White House, Grisham treats her duties as press secretary as complaining to pro-Trump pundits about how unfair everyone else is to the president.
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press secretary whines after CNN’s Anderson Cooper ridiculed her outrageous liesWalter Einenkel / Daily Kos
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919
One of the people who obviously didn’t leave the Trump Administration on bad terms was former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, an often abrasive defender of the president who was quick to join him in bashing the mainstream media. And after replacing Sanders in July, Stephanie Grisham (First Lady Melania Trump’s former press secretary) proved to be equally adversarial with the mainstream press. President Trump was recently criticized for claiming that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian and becoming furious when the National Weather Service responded that Alabama was not in danger, and Grisham responded by rising to Trump’s defense and attacking CNN. In Grisham, Trump has exactly what he wants in a White House press secretary: a confrontational attack dog who will stridently defend him even when he is at his most ridiculous.
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Why Trump’s new press secretary is actually more dangerous than Sarah Sanders Add it to the list of long-standing norms that the… |
https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/patriotism-truth-and-fascism-donald-trump-is-creating-a-subjective-reality/
no lnx
Patriotism, truth and fascism: Donald Trump is creating a subjective reality
Written byChauncey DeVega / Salon September 3, 2019
At some point in high school, Donald Trump’s new White House press secretary and communications directorStephanie Grishammust have read George Orwell’s “1984.” Instead of understanding Orwell’s book as a warning about totalitarianism, however, Grisham took it as a “how to” guide.
This is from a profile of Grisham, published last week in the Washington Post:
Does Grisham think Trump ever lies? After all, as of Aug. 5, The Washington Post Fact Checker had documented 12,019 false or misleading claims made by Trump during his presidency.
“No,” she responds without hesitation. “I don’t think they’re lies. .?.?. I think the president communicates in a way that some people, especially the media, aren’t necessarily comfortable with. A lot of times they take him so literally. I know people will roll their eyes if I say he was just kidding or was speaking in hypotheticals, but sometimes he is. What I’ve learned about him is that he loves this country and he’s not going to lie to this country.”
Despite the thousands of documented lies Trump has told since becoming president, his media sycophants at Fox News and elsewhere continue to claim that he is an honest and truthful person. Because they are authoritarians who are comfortable with their leaders lying to them, Trump’s voters and other Republicans also believe that he is honest.
Grisham’s recent comments to the Post are also another example of a very dangerous overlap between Donald Trump’s subjective reality, politics and truth. When Grisham says, “What I’ve learned about him is that he loves this country and he’s not going to lie to this country,” she is asserting that patriotism — always a subjective and normative quality — is a litmus test for the truth. Given his egomania and narcissism, Trump certainly agrees with her. Objective reality is to be made secondary, if not wholly replaced and usurped by, the whims of a mercurial, unstable authoritarian.
The real world is swallowed up by TrumpWorld; Trump’s critics and other detractors are then excluded from reality itself — which in turn legitimates their silencing by any means available.
In total, Trump’s lies, and the media and political machine that disseminates and sustains them, are antithetical to democracy. This is not a precondition for fascism. It is fascism in action.
Moreover, those people and organizations who aid, abet and enforce his lies are also enemies of a good and humane society. Philosopher Hannah Arendt warned of this in her 1971 essay “Lying in Politics”:
[T]he historian knows how vulnerable is the whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily life …. [I]t is always in danger of being perforated by single lies or torn to shreds by the organized lying of groups, nations, or classes, or denied and distorted, often carefully covered up by reams of falsehoods or simply allowed to fall into oblivion. Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy witnesses to be established in order to find a secure dwelling place in the domain of human affairs.
The Washington Post’s profile of Stephanie Grisham also reveals the worldview and collective character of the Trump regime and those people willing to serve it. In Grisham’s comments about her job as press secretary and communications director there is no mention of a commitment to public service, the common good or the well-being of the American people. Loyalty to Donald Trump is all that matters.The framers of the United States Constitution rejected the divine right of kings and queens and the idea of a hereditary nobility in America. Donald Trump is the human exemplar of why the framers put safeguards in the Constitution to remove such an authoritarian.
Donald Trump’s lies are a tool. They help him to assault the rule of law, cut away at democracy, profit from corruption and greed, normalize his illegitimate regime, and stay in power by distracting the American people and the news media from his political agenda, which presents a dire threat to the existence of America’s multiracial democracy.
Donald Trump’s lies represent another type of threat as well. Philosopher Henry Giroux demonstrates in his new book “American Nightmare” how Trump and his movement imperil the American people’s relationship to history and reality:
History not only grounds us in the past by showing how democratic institutions rise and fall, it is also replete with memories and narratives of resistance that pose a dangerous threat for any fascist system. This is particularly true today given the deep ideological features and legacies of fascism that are deeply worn into Trumpism’s rhetoric of retribution, intolerance, and demonization; its mix of schlock pageantry, coercion, violence, and impunity; and the constant stoking of ultra-nationalism and racial agitation.
Keeping historical memory alive is a form of resistance because it questions everything and complicates one’s relationship to power, oneself, others, and the large community. It also functions “to give witness to the truth of the past so that the politics of today is vibrantly democratic.” Historical memory matters because it offers a form of moral witnessing, and serves as a crucial asset in preventing new forms of fascism from becoming normalized. The conditions leading to fascism do not exist outside of history in some ethereal space in which everything is measured against the degree of distraction it promises. Historical memory is a prerequisite to the political and moral awakening necessary to successfully counter authoritarianism in the United States today.
What can good Americans and other people of conscience do to survive and eventually triumph over Donald Trump and his movement’s full-spectrum assault on democracy and empirical reality?
First, they must vote in overwhelming numbers for the Democratic candidate for president — whoever that may be — in 2020. Democratic voters (and liberals and progressives more generally) must reject purity tests and unite behind their party’s presidential nominee. Supporting the candidate who is most likely to defeat Donald Trump and the Republican Party must be the overriding principle in 2020. Already imperiled, the future of the United States is at literal risk if Donald Trump is re-elected.
Good Americans and other people of conscience must also make a personal moral accounting. They need to ask themselves, “What am I doing in my day-to-day life to resist Donald Trump’s fascist movement?” Yes, sustained collective action is critical if the American people are to beat back this national and global crisis. But individuals must also stop waiting for other people to save them. Personal inaction is not a viable option. Passivity is complicity.
As others have suggested, all Americans — and all people around the world who are living through this global right-wing authoritarian moment — should maintain a journal or use some other means to document how the world around them is changing. Trumpism and similar movements are assaulting the very nature of reality itself. The Age of Trump is both a moral and political crisis that gains momentum and wins final power by shattering norms and creating a type of malignant reality and state of moral inversion. By documenting these changes, individuals can stay grounded and not be swept away by the lies and corrupting influence of Trump and his movement.
The personal must be the political, if Donald Trump and his version of American fascism are to be defeated. People of conscience should cease all communications with their relatives, friends, and other people in their lives who support Donald Trump and his movement. If that is not an option they should not discuss politics with anyone who supports Donald Trump. These people are willing members of a political cult. Trumpists cannot be freed until they choose to free themselves. Good Americans and other people of conscience should instead spend their energy supporting candidates and causes who are working to remove Donald Trump from office, blunting the harm he and his movement are doing in the present, and preparing to rehabilitate American democracy once Trump and other Republicans are removed from office.
You are not crazy. Trump’s defenders and other enablers accuse his critics of suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome.” Such accusations are acts of projection. In reality, it is Trump and his supporters and enablers who are politically deranged, wallowing in a state of moral inversion, lost to malignant reality and mass political psychosis. They are waging a war on reality and truth, here in America and around the world.
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/trumps-new-press-secretary-isnt-holding-briefings-because-she-fears-suffering-sarah-sanders-fate-report/
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resigning?
https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/stephanie-grisham-has-an-extensive-history-of-lying-to-reporters-that-makes-her-the-perfect-choice-for-trumps-new-white-house-press-secretary/
no lnx
Stephanie Grisham has an extensive history of lying to reporters. That makes her the perfect choice for Trump’s new White House press secretary
written by Alex Henderson June 27, 2019
President Donald Trump has found a replacement for outgoing White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: Stephanie Grisham, who has been serving as First Lady Melania Trump’s communications director since March 2017. British journalist Mehdi Hasan, who now lives in Washington, D.C., asserts in a June 26 article for The Intercept that Grisham is ideal for the position — and he doesn’t mean that in a good way. Grisham, Hasan stresses, will fit right in with the Trump Administration because she is a “demonstrable liar.”
The U.K.-born Hasan is known for not pulling punches, but he is also known for offering plenty of evidence to back up his assertions. And he explains, in detail, why he considers Grisham untrustworthy.
Hasan recalls Grisham’s statements when Melania Trump visited migrant children who were in detention in McAllen, Texas in June 2018 and boarded the plane wearing a jacket that said, “I really don’t care. Do U?”
Grisham, Hasan recalls, insisted, “It’s a jacket. There was no hidden message.” But in October 2018, the first lady acknowledged that the jacket “was kind of a message, yes” — and that message was meant “for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me. And I want to show them that I don’t care.”
Hasan emphasizes that “what matters is that Grisham was willing to so brazenly lie about such a trivial issue — and has never acknowledged it or apologized.”
Today’s visit w the children in Texas impacted @flotus greatly. If media would spend their time & energy on her actions & efforts to help kids – rather than speculate & focus on her wardrobe – we could get so much accomplished on behalf of children. #SheCares #ItsJustAJacket
— Stephanie Grisham (@StephGrisham45) June 21, 2018
Hasan also recalls that in July 2018, President Trump “falsely claimed that he had arrived in the U.K. on June 23, 2016, the day of the Brexit referendum, and had predicted the outcome of the vote.” That was a false statement, Hasan notes, because “the president had arrived in the country the day after the referendum, on June 24” — and Grisham went along with the lie by insisting to a BBC reporter that Donald Trump arrived in the U.K. on June 23, 2016 rather than June 24, 2016.
Grisham tweeted, “I was there. June 23.”
He did. It actually is true. I was there. June 23. https://t.co/5xrbSks1Xd
— Stephanie Grisham (@StephGrisham45) July 13, 2018
Grisham’s history of blatant dishonesty, Hasan writes, makes her “the perfect appointment to an administration of pathological liars.” And he includes Sanders in that generalization, asserting that during her two years as White House press secretary, the daughter of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has told “lie after lie after lie.”
“There don’t seem to be any consequences for Trump advisers who tell lies or break the law,” Hasan writes, stressing that dishonesty is considered a virtue — not a liability — in the Trump Administration. And considering that dishonesty is encouraged rather than discouraged in the Trump Administration, Hasan writes, Grisham will be the ideal successor to Sarah Huckabee Sanders.