Of all the charlatans and grifters keen to cash out of Trumpworld with some tawdry tell-all of Donald Trump’s presidency, few figures had more potential for dropping a true bombshell than Stephanie Grisham. She was one of the only Trump consiglieres to survive the entirety of his 2016 campaign through Jan. 6. Hence, Grisham’s long-awaited memoir is instead a dud that spells a death knell for the literary genre.
Less intriguing than any scoops revealed by Grisham (Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump thought they were this decade’s Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld!) is the mystery underlying the book’s very raison d’etre — mainly, what exactly was she expecting?
Grisham joined Team Trump not as a seasoned political operative, but rather as a true believer. Although Grisham had a handful of prior political stints with the Arizona GOP and briefly on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, becoming a Trump 2016 press aide was her real foray into national politics. Per her book, she was earnestly hooked by Trump’s candor and willingness to buck the party line on foreign policy, an understandable enough predilection. But the logic ends there.
The biggest personal bombshell to emerge from I’ll Take Your Questions Now, playing upon Grisham’s refusal to hold a single press briefing during her tenure as White House press secretary, is the confirmation that her ex-boyfriend, former Trump aide Max Miller, was indeed violent with her. Somewhat inexplicably, Grisham seems almost flabbergasted that the Trumps didn’t do anything about it.
First lady Melania Trump, whom Grisham had spent much of the presidency working for directly, did call to check in on her once a friend had the Secret Service do a wellness check after her breakup with Miller, and perhaps even more surprising, the president even checked in with Grisham to see how she was doing after seeing Miller at work. But honestly, what more did Grisham possibly expect?
Joe Biden doesn’t sell newspapers, and his fans in cable news certainly would prefer keeping his flailing presidency out of the spotlight. But so long as D-listers from Trumpworld continue to offer crumbs to satiate the corporate media’s withdrawals from the glitz and gore of 45’s endless chaos, former friends of Melania’s and black sheep family members of Donald’s will continue to have a seat at the anchor’s table and a book deal.
But if a Trump loyalist of half a decade can’t add anything new to the story, Trump tell-alls are headed to the discount bin.
