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- Trump berated Grisham after the press failed to document his visit to an Ohio hospital after a mass shooting.
- Melania Trump joined in the criticism of Grisham, who was then White House press secretary.
- Grisham wrote that she tried to explain the press weren't allowed in the hospital for privacy and health reasons.
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President Donald Trump berated then-White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham after she was unable to bring members of the press into a hospital to document his meeting with mass-shooting victims in 2019, Grisham wrote in her new book.
The former president, along with then-first lady Melania Trump, visited an intensive care unit in Ohio following a mass shooting in Dayton that killed nine people and injured over two dozen in August 2019.
Trump wanted Grisham to invite the press to "capture all of the medical staff clapping and cheering for them and taking selfies" but she said they weren't allowed to due to patients' privacy and concerns over keeping the "environment as sterile as possible," Grisham wrote.
But Trump dismissed Grisham's reasoning and grew very angry, she wrote. As the trip went on, the former president repeatedly brought up the issue, telling Grisham: "I can't believe you didn't have them-meaning the press-in the hospital. What a waste."
Later that day, when Trump saw local Democratic politicians criticizing his visit in a press conference, he erupted at Grisham, she wrote.
"The president turned to me and, for the first time since I had met the man, totally unleashed on me," Grisham wrote. "His eyes were fixed and filled with anger. His face had passed red and was turning almost purple."
Trump went on to yell at Grisham in front of other staffers as they departed Ohio on Air Force One. "Where the hell are our people?" he said, according to her. "Why are those two on TV right now and there is no one to defend me? Why are you even on this plane? What do I have a whole team of people for if there is no one fucking defending me? And I am stuck on this fucking airplane and can't do anything!"
The former first lady also piled on the criticism, Grisham wrote. "There should have been press at that first stop," Melania told her, according to the book. "That would've been better. It didn't look good."
Grisham, who served on the 2016 Trump campaign and in a series of senior White House roles in both the East and West wings, detailed the scene in her forthcoming tell-all memoir, "I'll Take Your Questions Now," which is set for release on Tuesday. Insider obtained an early copy of the book.
Both Trumps have condemned Grisham amid news of her memoir, which paints a scathing portrait of a dishonest and incompetent White House.
"Stephanie didn't have what it takes and that was obvious from the beginning," Trump told The New York Times in a statement last week. Melania Trump called Grisham a "deceitful and troubled individual" trying to "rehabilitate" her reputation "by manipulating and distorting the truth about Mrs. Trump."
