The Trump White House s Intern Program Is Once Again Very Very White

Published Apr 6, 2022 at 3:00 AM CDT

PLAINVILLE, Kansas — Stephanie Grisham has the distinction of serving as a White House press secretary who never held a press conference.

And who ultimately turned on the erstwhile chief executive who brought her into the Westward Fly.

Now she lives in a deep-scarlet part of west-central Kansas — surrounded by Americans where Donald Trump remains a political savior and from where she'south coordinating with Republicans beyond the country determined that he never render to the Oval Office.

"She hides in obviously sight here," says Lauren Mack, veterinarian to the town of almost 1,750 people.

Six years ago, she viewed the New York real estate human being and reality TV star the same way every bit so many of her new Midwestern neighbors do today. She saw him as a straight-shooting antidote capable of draining a swamp of graft and cocky-dealing in Washington.

Grisham became determined to brand America great once again by working for Trump's 2022 presidential entrada. She rose high enough in the campaign that afterwards Trump was elected, she became Starting time Lady Melania Trump'due south spokeswoman.

And late in the administration, she took over the job every bit the president's press secretarial assistant.

Just her view from inside the Trump White Firm made her lose religion. And when, during the Jan. 6 insurrection, Melania Trump refused to OK a tweet condemning the violence on Capitol Hill, Grisham quit.

Andrew Harnik

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Associated Press

White Firm press secretarial assistant Stephanie Grisham listens equally President Donald Trump, right, speaks to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, Nov. 8, 2019, before boarding Marine I for a short trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Medico. and so on to Georgia to see with supporters.

Like a handful of other Trump acolytes-turned-antagonists, she wrote a book. It was not kind to the man who was once her hero. It cast Trump equally an aroused man-child with a special love of dictators.

Grisham has become one of the more visible Republicans fighting against Trump, appearing on national TV and working with other disaffected former Trump staffers on a programme to make sure her former boss stays out of public office.

She's doing that from an erstwhile house in the ranching-and-oil boondocks Plainville in a county where Trump won 86% of the vote in 2020.

And, and so far, so proficient.

"I've had admittedly no problems," Grisham said. "Everybody'due south kind to me. There are a couple of people who, I think, give me looks that aren't super pleasant. But well, y'all know, maybe they're just having a bad day."

People who aren't immediately recognizable in Plainville stand out. Some don't know who Grisham is. For a lot of people in Plainville, the most of import affair is that a relatively young person (Grisham is 45) has moved to this shrinking boondocks and fixed up an old business firm.

Others, though, call Grisham a traitor, someone who double-crossed Trump to brand a buck. And they adore Donald Trump.

"He's it," said Candace Rachel, long-time editor of the Plainville Times. "A lot of people in this town think he's the savior."

Why Plainville?

Grisham said it's unlikely she would ever have fix human foot in the identify if her sister hadn't married a Plainville native. But Grisham came out for a visit, and wound upwardly staying for three weeks.

"We would sit on the patio and it's then serenity," recalls Grisham. "And at nighttime you can come across all the stars."

That was during the pandemic lockdown, when Grisham was working remotely anyway. She would steal abroad from Washington for long visits to Plainville and eventually bought a house across the street from her sister'south place.

"It was only this actually peaceful place that I thought would be a perfect place to kind of get over Trumpworld," Grisham said.

Frank Morris

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KCUR

Stephanie Grisham holds a memento from her years working for the Trumps, a photo taken on Air Force Ane.

Afterwards she resigned on the day of the Capitol coup, Grisham's Plainville identify became the base for writing her book, "I'll Take Your Questions Now." In it, she calls the Trump assistants a "clown car on burn running full speed into a warehouse full of fireworks" and chronicles childish, needy and dishonest behavior on the part of her former boss.

"I kept thinking like, 'Oh, what's going to happen here?'" Grisham said. "This is a very big 2nd Amendment part of the state and, I'm not going to lie, I thought, 'Should I learn to shoot a gun myself? Am I going to need protection?'"

The answer was no. The volume came out, but it'south difficult to find anyone in Plainville who's actually read information technology. And Grisham said she tends to keep her ideas about Trump to herself when she's out effectually town.

That may change considering Grisham feels a special responsibility to tell her beau pro-gun, anti-immigrant neighbors that Trump is not the all-time guy to go the job washed.

"He's not your savior and he's not looking out for you. And I am saying that as somebody who really thought he was," she said. "I've got to endeavour to effigy out a style to express that to people."

She wants to craft a message that respects that devotion, rather than ridiculing it.

"He's the ultimate con homo," Grisham said. "I … experience the responsibility to endeavor to talk to the people I talk to all the time who think he's amazing. And I wanna say, 'I understand that. I idea he was amazing." But I promise you, he'due south not in your corner. He's in Donald Trump's corner. Period."

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Source: https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-04-06/stephanie-grisham-worked-in-trumps-white-house-she-works-against-him-from-deep-red-kansas