Once a fierce defender of former President Donald Trump, Stephanie Grisham is now speaking out about her time in the White House.
But on Tuesday, CNN’s John Berman asked the former press secretary if her comments about her former boss are a sign of genuine regret or just meant to boost sales of her book.
“As you told us, there were many opportunities where you could have said no or should have said no, you didn’t,” Berman said as he asked, “Now you are saying you regret it, but the question is, are you saying you regret it to sell books? Do you really feel bad? If you had to do it all over again, would you do it differently?”
Grisham responded, “If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t have been there. But, obviously, hindsight is 2020.”
“Obviously, I want to sell books, but I want to sell books so that people can read the entire story and see the context. And again, I was a loyalist, and I was a believer, and I defended them fiercely. And if I can convince five or six other people who were like me that this is not natural and this is not normal, and this is a cult-like environment, and if you can just step out and clear your head, maybe I can change things,” she added.
Finally, Grisham said she “made a lot of mistakes” during her time in the White House, but argued that she helped “mitigate a lot of disasters.”
Watch the video below:
CNN's @JohnBerman with a great question to former Trump WH Press Sec. Stephanie Grisham:
— The Recount (@therecount) October 5, 2021
"Now you are saying you regret it. But the question is, are you saying you regret it to sell books? Do you really feel bad? If you had to do it all over again, would you do it differently?" pic.twitter.com/nXDctJKa1a
Grisham, who served as the former president’s press secretary and chief of staff for former First Lady Melania Trump, penned a new memoir titled “I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House,” in which she shares unsavory stories about her time working in the Trump White House.
She told ABC News on Monday that it was a mistake to work for Trump and claimed that if he runs in 2024, he will “be about revenge” and will “probably have some pretty draconian policies.”
And on Tuesday, Grisham told CNN that she believes she played a role in “hurting democracy.”
Co-host Briana Keilar also asked if she believed her “enabling” of the former president “cost lives” during the COVID-19 pandemic, to which she responded, “I do.”
“I think the way we handled Covid was tragic. I think that the president’s vanity got in the way. He was working for his base. He was not working for this country. He, you know, didn’t wear a mask quickly enough,” Grisham responded.
She explained, “I also worked for Mrs. Trump. I was so proud because she was out there doing press and wearing a mask and trying to push it.”
“Naive as this is, I kept hoping she would convince her husband, you know, ‘Please get out there, Donald. Get out there.’ But, yes, again, I was part of that. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself with respect to covid. I don’t think I can ever redeem myself,” she added.