How 'true believer' Grisham rose through the GOP ranks and then flipped on Trump

“I love my country more than my party,” said Stephanie Grisham, a former Tucson resident who was one of Donald Trump’s “closest advisors” in the White House, as she endorsed Kamala Harris for president at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night.

Grisham, speaking on stage at the DNC in Chicago, said “Kamala Harris tells the truth, respects the American people, and she has my vote.”

Earlier this month, Grisham — who served as a spokeswoman for Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign and through nearly all of his White House tenure — joined a group of “Republicans for Harris,” supporting the Democratic candidate for president.

Tuesday, she described herself as having been a “true believer” and “one of his closest advisors,” spending time with the Trump family on holidays.

“Behind closed doors, Trump mocks his supporters,” she said. “He calls them basement-dwellers.”

“He has no empathy, no morals, no fidelity to the truth,” said the former advisors to the Republican president. “Say it enough and they’ll believe you,” Grisham said Trump said.

Grisham noted that she was criticized during her time as a White House spokeswoman for never holding a press briefing.

“Unlike my boss, I never wanted to stand at that podium and lie,” she said.

“I might not agree with Vice President Kamala Harris on everything, but I know that she will fight for our freedom, protect our democracy and represent America with honor and dignity on the world stage,” Grisham said in a statement released by the group earlier this month.

Grisham, who got her political start in Arizona, worked on Trump’s first presidential campaign, beginning in May 2016, and began working in his administration after he won the 2016 election, serving both the president and first lady, and eventually rising to the position of press secretary and communications director.

Grisham resigned from her post, at the time chief of staff for Melania Trump, effective immediately in the aftermath of the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, in which Trump supporters broke windows and smashed doors in an attempt to halt the tally of electoral votes for Joe Biden.

Now, the person who once served as Trump’s top White House spokeswoman is endorsing Harris, his Democratic opponent.

The group of Republicans, announced earlier in August by the Harris for President campaign, includes Grisham, former Cabinet secretaries Chuck Hagel and Ray LaHood, ex-governors Christine Todd Whitman, Bill Weld and Jim Edgar, numerous former members of Congress such as Adam Kinzinger, Susan Molinari and Denver Riggleman, and Mesa Mayor John Giles.

Giles also spoke at the DNC on Tuesday night. Kinzinger is also scheduled to speak at the convention.

“There is nothing ‘conservative’ about Donald Trump. Conservatives believe in the Constitution, not a ‘man’s’ ego,” Kinzinger tweeted. “Endorsing American democracy and the future today, and leaving the past in the dust. I’m endorsing @KamalaHarris.”

Grisham served in numerous roles for Trump. She worked in the White House from the beginning of Trump’s term, and was named his press secretary and communications director in May 2019, replacing Sarah Huckabee Sanders. During her year-long tenure in that post, she never held a single on-camera briefing for reporters.

Grisham, a former flack for Republicans in Arizona who worked on Trump’s presidential campaign and then controversially was paid by taxpayers here while working on Trump’s transition team, had been appointed as the first lady’s top spokeswoman in March 2017.

Disagreements with Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, caused her to leave the West Wing in spring 2020 and return to the East Wing to work for the first lady’s office again.

In 2018, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel — an investigative agency unrelated to the work of Special Counsel Robert Mueller — determined that Grisham violated the federal Hatch Act prohibition on government employees campaigning while using taxpayer resources. Grisham tweeted the Trump political slogan “#MAGA” (“Make America Great Again”) using her official account, and a warning letter was issued.

Grisham worked as the spokeswoman for the Republicans in the Arizona Legislature after a stint of several years as the public information officer for state Attorney General Tom Horne.

Grishman was named “Best PR Person” at the state Capitol by the Arizona Capitol Times in 2015, when she demonstrated a sense of humor about her work with a video spoof.

The next year, she didn’t endear herself to reporters when she enforced then-House Speaker David Gowan’s attempt to block journalists from the floor of the Legislature if they didn’t submit to background checks. Gowan was targeting Hank Stephenson of the Cap Times, who investigated Gowan’s improper use of state vehicles as he campaigned for Congress. Gowan had to repay taxpayers $12,000 after Stephenson’s report.

Gowan’s move, billed as a “security measure,” was met with condemnation and mockery by the press, and he backed down several days later.

Grisham was involved in political scandals while working for Horne, who was accused of improperly coordinating with the head of the group Business Leaders of Arizona during his 2010 campaign. Those allegations were mooted when the Arizona Supreme Court found that his due process rights were violated by Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk during the investigation.

During Horne’s 2014 re-election campaign, Grisham worked in his government office and as a campaign staffer — including doing political work while on the clock for taxpayers. Horne was fined $10,000 by the Clean Elections Commission over the violations in his losing bid, but another state probe into the issue was dropped after three years of investigation.

Prior to her series of government jobs, she was a spokeswoman for AAA Arizona, beginning in 2007, and also worked for the Arizona Charter Schools Association.

Grisham was divorced from former husband Dan Marries, the KOLD Channel 13 anchor, in 2004. She then married Todd Grisham, a KOLD sportscaster who later became an announcer for Fox Sports and ESPN. They divorced in 2006.

She began working for the Trump campaign in May 2016, after the Legislature adjourned.

After Trump’s election, Grisham first worked with the incoming president’s transition team, and then as a deputy press secretary. She was named a “special assistant to the president” and communications director for the first lady on March 27, 2017.

After the 2020 election, Grisham reportedly texted a lobbyist that the rumors of election fraud were false.

Grisham handed in her resignation on the evening of the Jan. 6 insurrection, CNN reported, following a day of clashes in which a woman was fatally shot inside the Capitol building and Trumpist rioters invaded the chambers of the House and Senate, forcing members of both bodies, along with Vice President Mike Pence, to take shelter in safe rooms.

The hours-long riot, which Pence called “unprecedented violence and vandalism” and and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called a “failed insurrection,” interrupted the counting of electoral votes to formally complete the election of Biden, who will be sworn in as president on January 20. Lawmakers convened later in the night to again take up the process of acknowledging Biden’s election victory.

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