From former Trump shadow press secretary Stephanie Grisham comes “news” that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump “thought they were a shadow president and first lady.” She thinks Ivanka is the “brains” of their little operation.
And Mark Meadows, former White House chief of staff? On “a scale of awfulness in the Trump White House, with a five being the most terrible person around,” Meadows rates a 12. (He was my congressman; I could have told you that.)
Already these tales from inside the Trump White House confirming what we already knew about its tawdry, grifting sliminess have, as Dieter might say, grown tiresome.
But even as Grisham profits from admitting she can never redeem herself for enabling the Trump administration, there is that teensy bit of self-awareness to her credit. She never expected to be a traitor like those who wrote Trump tell-alls before her. She helped the White House draft responses to books by those people. With publication of “I’ll Take Your Questions Now,” she is one of those people.
“I don’t think I can rebrand,” Grisham told New York Magazine‘s Olivia Nuzzi. “I think this will follow me forever.”
“I believe that I was part of something unusually evil,” said Grisham, “and I hope that it was a one-time lesson for our country and that I can be a part of making sure that at least that evil doesn’t come back now.”
One can not only hope but work to make sure it doesn’t. We’ve spent much time over the last six years dancing around attaching the F-word to Trumpism. It was arresting to see a former Trump insider attach the E-word.