Stephanie Grisham was a former aide of Donald Trump and said that he had watched the January 6 Capitol Attack with glee.
Grisham, who served as Trump’s press secretary and as chief of staff for former First Lady Melania Trump, abruptly resigned from the White House on the day of the Capitol attack. She has repeatedly criticized Trump’s former president and his aides since then.
Grisham met this week with the House select panel investigating the January 6 attack. After a closed session with the commission she said that she had “cooperated fully” with the inquiry, and that she plans to “continue to do so” if they have more questions.
Interview about her testimony CNN’s “New Day” program, Grisham said that Trump didn’t have a concerned demeanor while watching the attack – instead, he seemed to be pleased with his loyalists’ actions.
Trump “was in the dining room, gleefully watching on his TV as he often did, [saying] ‘look at all of the people fighting for me,’ hitting rewind, watching it again,” Grisham said in the interview.
Grisham: All I know about that day is that he was in the dining room gleefully watching on his TV as he often did… “look at all of the people fighting for me”
Click rewind to watch again pic.twitter.com/URe2vjYBNP— Acyn (@Acyn) January 6, 2022
Grisham also stated that she plans to fight the extremism promoted Trump by other means than cooperating with his January 6 commission. She and other ex-Trump administration officials plan to meet soon to discuss ways they can counteract Trumpism in the future.
“Next week, a group of former Trump staff are going to come together, administration officials are going to come together, and we’re going to talk about how we can formally do some things to try and stop him and also, the extremism, that that [sic] kind of violence, rhetoric that has been talked about and continues to divide our country,” Grisham said.
There are “about 15” Trump aides planning to take part, she added.
If Grisham, her former White House colleagues, are serious about fighting Trumpism, it will prove difficult as they will have to convince Republicans to reject Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
Recent polling has shown that Trump is not the preferred choice for most Americans. as bearing “a great deal” or “a good amount” of the responsibilityFor the attack a whopping 78 percent of Republicans say Trump had “just some” or no responsibility for what happened. Worse, 52 percent said that they believed the mob made up of Trump loyalists was acting in defense of democracy. According to a poll by ABC NewsIpsos.
