Donald Trump promised to bring the best and brightest with him to the White House, but instead has delivered a long line of upward-failing orcs. Shortly after the impeachment inquiry was announced, the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters that yes, the Trump administration “held up the money” for aid to Ukraine in a quid pro quo deal for an investigation into the Biden family, and that everybody should just “get over it.” Since then, the White House has done what it does most of the time: scramble to spin, spin, spin.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, whose work history has more red flags than an Olympic slalom event, has never held a single press conference, but she has found the time to speak with Fox News hosts on occasion. CNN’s Anderson Cooper took Grisham to task on his show on Friday during a segment called “The RidicuList.” Cooper pointed out that Grisham has not held a single official news briefing and then went on to discuss Grisham’s strange appearance defending Mick Mulvaney’s statement. As with all Trump mouthpieces, Grisham went to Fox & Friends and blamed the evil media, saying it had gotten itself “in a tizzy” over nothing.
In a clip that can be seen below, Cooper mocked Grisham and asked the audience whether everybody who worked for Trump “had to debase themselves and lie like he does.” He hooked on to a certain talking point that Grisham has echoed a few times on Fox News—that press conferences and media availabilities with White House officials are “theater.” The talking point is a perfect one for the Trump administration, as it’s dismissive of the media while absolving White House officials of lying. She also said that press conferences were “about people wanting to be on TV and making names for themselves.”
Anderson joked that Grisham needs to expand her vocabulary, and clearly didn’t get to Broadway enough, as her ideas of what theater is are rather narrow. He said, “Maybe one of these seven days a week she’s not doing her job, she can catch maybe a matinee of Hamilton. Just tell them Mike Pence sent you—you’ll probably get free tickets. Also, I hate to break it to you, but TV reporters are already on TV.”
Cooper pointed out that the few times Trump has spoken to a collection of media in any official news conference, he has done things like display Trump steaks and cover the stage with every available American flag. Business Insider reports that it received a response from Stephanie Grisham herself! In response to the CNN clip, Grisham said, "I think CNN has lost sight of the fact that we are human beings. Just as Anderson Cooper has a job to do, working for a company he is proud of, so do I. I also imagine he has a personal life, where he has to juggle quite a bit - and the same goes for me."
Grisham realized she needed to really drive home what it is she is trying to do, "I am a single mom who (proudly) holds three roles in the White House, and I am doing the very best I can. But I definitely don't get to Broadway enough." You see that, media elites! She’s a hard-working single mother. Surprisingly, her children haven’t been taken away and stuck in cages, and shockingly, Marco Rubio and Ivanka Trump’s attempts to privatize paid family leave haven’t helped ease Grisham’s burden.
Trump’s press team has a long history of supporting, promoting, and defending inhumane policies and positions. They are willing to smear anyone, including grieving parents, in order to prove fealty to their pathological liar in chief. And while Stephanie Grisham is right—she and her White House colleagues are human—they aren’t doing a very good job of being human.