Trump Told Press Secretary She Was ‘Weak’ and ‘Worthless’ Because She Refused to Kick Kaitlan Collins Out of Briefing Room
Even though he has been out of office for almost 10 weeks, former President Donald Trump is still throwing off content that makes political media blogs sing. To wit, a new bit of information included in the paperback version of Jon Karl’s Front Row at the Trump Show reveals how he came down hard on his Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham.
According to an anecdote first aggregated by Tuesday morning’s Politico Playbook, Trump was apparently none too pleased with some aggressive questioning by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and insisted that his former White House Communications Director turned Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham evict her from the White House briefing room.
When Grisham explained who she couldn’t do that (since the White House Press Corps has its own authority), Trump reportedly replied “That’s because you are weak! You are worthless!”
Politico reports:
Another anecdote about former White House press secretary STEPHANIE GRISHAM is surprising given her seeming resentment of reporters and the fact that she never once held an on-camera press briefing. According to Karl, Grisham defied Trump’s orders to remove CNN’s KAITLAN COLLINS from a Covid-19 briefing room where Pence was speaking to reporters. “Go down there and get her out of there,” Trump told Grisham, finding her in her office. “Mr. President, I really cannot do that,” Grisham told Trump to his face mid-briefing, to which the president responded: “That’s because you are weak! You are worthless!”
Collins tweeted a screenshot of the above passage and added “Thanks for the memories, @jonkarl” with a link to the Politico page.
There is more in the new printing of the ABC’s Chief White House Reporter revealed by Politico, like Trump’s decision on where to send the Naval rescue ship Mercy based on politics, but you should really buy the book so you can find out that and more bits of interesting insight from Karl’s tome (now in paperback!)
