In April 2020, Stephanie Grisham stepped down as Donald Trump’s White House press secretary. In August 2024, Grisham not only disavowed her former boss, she also spoke at the Democratic National Convention, telling attendees that the Republican nominee has “no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth.”
But there was another part of her remarks that stood out for me.
Donald Trump "has no empathy, no morals, and no fidelity to the truth."
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 20, 2024
Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham speaks at the DNC. Grisham, who resigned hours after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, shares what she witnessed when the cameras… pic.twitter.com/5bk9wG2Imo
“[Trump] used to tell me, ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie — say it enough and people will believe you.’ But it does matter — what you say matters, and what you don’t say matters.”
At face value, the fact that Grisham was on the stage at all was extraordinary. Not only is Trump’s former vice president withholding his support for the Republican’s 2024 candidacy, and not only is Trump’s former White House chief of staff condemning his former boss, but Trump’s former White House press secretary and communications director appeared at the Democratic convention and explained how and why the Republican lies.
But there was something familiar about what Grisham said during her remarks.
As I noted in my new book, as Trump’s first year in the White House neared an end, Billy Bush wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times. Bush was not an especially notable public figure at the time, but in the infamous “Access Hollywood” record, he was the one Trump bragged to about assaulting women. (“When you’re a star, they let you do it,” the future president told Bush. “You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the p—y.”)
In his 2017 op-ed, Bush reflected on what he’d learned about the then-president and shared an anecdote about a conversation he’d had with Trump about inflating the ratings of his reality-television program. Bush wrote that Trump had told him privately, “People will just believe you. You just tell them, and they believe you.” Seven years later, Grisham said something eerily similar: “[Trump] used to tell me, ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie — say it enough and people will believe you.’” In other words, what Trump privately told Billy Bush about his willingness to lie is effectively identical to what Trump privately told his former White House press secretary about his willingness to lie. It’s a philosophy, for lack of a better word, rooted in the idea that fiction can simply overpower fact through relentless and shameless repetition. Why does the former president repeat transparent nonsense, over and over again? People close to him have already told us the answer.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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