Former First Lady Melania Trump’s Chief of Staff, Stephanie Grisham (who also served for a while as White House Press Secretary in the Trump administration), says Melania was “dismissive, defeated, and detached” in the days after it became clear her husband had indeed lost the 2020 election, and also refused to call for peace to help quell the riots that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
Daniel Lippman of Politico notes that Grisham compares Melania to doomed French queen Marie Antoinette, who was beheaded as part of the French revolution:
At 1:25 p.m. on Jan. 6, soon after rioters had broken through barricades outside of the Capitol, MELANIA TRUMP received a text message from her then-chief of staff, STEPHANIE GRISHAM.
“Do you want to tweet that peaceful protests are the right of every American, but there is no place for lawlessness and violence?” Grisham asked the first lady.
A minute later, Melania replied with a one-word answer: “No.” At that moment, she was at the White House preparing for a photo shoot of a rug she had selected, according to exclusive excerpts of Grisham’s forthcoming book, “I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in The Trump White House,” obtained by POLITICO.
The former first lady also accepted her husband’s contention that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, despite the fact that neither he or anyone else in the administration ever provided any proof of that assertion:
Though it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that Melania stood by her husband on important questions like the election, Grisham writes in the book that she was “shocked” to learn that Melania seemed to share DONALD TRUMP’s view that the election was rigged.
Melania told Grisham that “something bad happened” and that the election results weren’t legitimate. She didn’t listen to Grisham when she tried to explain to her that there are small irregularities in all elections but there was no grand conspiracy to unfairly remove Trump from office, according to the book.
Though it appears Melania hasn’t yet read the book, her office released a statement in which she accused Grisham and others of spreading “salacious gossip, unwarranted personal attacks, and false misleading accusations on me.”
In other words, it sounds like Grisham hit a nerve.
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