stephanie grisham
Stephanie Grisham.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
  • Stephanie Grisham said she and other Trump staffers weren't concerned with "serving the country."
  • Grisham told ABC News that Trump White House staffers "got heady with power."
  • Grisham served as Trump's press secretary and communications director and as a top aide to Melania Trump.
  • See more stories on Insider's business page.

Stephanie Grisham, a former top White House aide, said on Monday that she and other Trump staffers weren't concerned with "serving the country" and instead focused on accruing power in Trump's chaotic White House.

Grisham, who served as White House press secretary and communications director, is highly critical of her former boss and his White House in her forthcoming tell-all memoir, "I'll Take Your Questions Now." She blamed herself for enabling a president she describes as dishonest, incompetent, and inappropriate during an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "Good Morning America."

"Many of us, myself included, who got into that White House got heady with power and became really – we didn't think about serving the country anymore, it was about surviving in there," Grisham said.

Grisham wrote that the Trump White House was constantly in chaos and at one point in her book said the operation was "like a clown car on fire running at full speed into a warehouse full of fireworks." She told Stephanopoulos that Trump "loved the chaos."

Grisham joined Trump's team during his 2016 campaign and served as deputy press secretary for the first couple of months of Trump's administration before moving to former first lady Melania Trump's staff. Grisham said she was somewhat shielded from the chaos of the West Wing until she became White House press secretary in the summer of 2019.

"When I went to the West Wing is when I actually started to see what it was really like, and I regretted that decision immediately," she told Stephanopoulos.

Melania Trump released a new statement bashing Grisham on Monday as "a deceitful and troubled individual who doesn't deserve anyone's trust." The former president also criticized Grisham in a statement last week.

Grisham said she expected condemnation from the Trumps, but said she "had the receipts" to back up her claims.

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