White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham complained on Tuesday of a bias she says is present among most major media outlets against her boss, President Trump.
“I always thought that people who questioned media were paranoid,” Grisham said during an interview on Examining Politics, a podcast from the Washington Examiner. “And now, seeing it with my own eyes, I really do believe they are an arm of the Democrats.”
Grisham, who replaced Sarah Huckabee Sanders as Trump’s press secretary in July, said watching a reporter cry on election night in 2016 after Trump had won the presidency proves an affinity in the media toward Democrats.
“I won’t say who he is or what network he’s from, but I saw it,” she said.
Grisham is often on the front lines of Trump’s relentless attacks on members of the media, which the president has repeatedly characterized as out to get him and purveyors of “fake news.”
Trump, in some cases, has gone so far as to call journalists “the enemy of the American people.”
Grisham, who spends each day corresponding with reporters, has yet to hold an official press briefing since assuming her current post. The White House press office views such briefings as increasingly unproductive as journalists covering Trump grow more combative.
“The briefings, which are meant to inform the public, were becoming a spectacle,” she said.
Grisham revealed she would hold her first briefing once Trump decides it is time for her to do so.
An openly hostile relationship between the news media and the office of the president does nobody any good, Grisham complained.
“It’s sad,” she said. “So many people rely on the news and believe they are going to bring you just fair and balanced news. And it’s not what’s happening.”
A constant barrage of what Trump and his top press aides perceive as negative or unfair coverage can make their jobs more difficult, the secretary said.
“But this man is working 12, 13, 14 hours a day. I can barely keep up with him,” Grisham said. “And he does keep delivering results. Whether or not it’s breaking through in the media, people are seeing it in their paychecks.”
