‘Surprising new scandals’: Ex-Trump press secretary to publish White House book

The former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, also a former top aide to the former first lady Melania Trump, is to publish a memoir in October.

The website Axios broke news of I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in the Trump White House, which will be published on October 5th by HarperCollins. Citing a “publishing source”, Axios says the book will reveal “surprising new scandals”.

Another source says the news conjured images of “Stephanie surrounded by a lake of gasoline, striking a match with a grin on her face”.

Four days after publication day, Donald Trump is due to stage a rally in Iowa as he stokes speculation about announcing a new White House run.

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Grisham’s book has been a highly guarded secret, perhaps unsurprisingly given that she proved highly guarded as White House press secretary, failing to host a single press-room briefing in nine months on the job.

Grisham stayed in the White House after stepping down as press secretary, ultimately resigning on January 6th this year, the day Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in service of his lie that his defeat was caused by electoral fraud.

Axios quotes a source close to Grisham saying that she “knows where all the bodies are buried because she buried a lot of them herself – [she] has receipts ... She was a press person, and it was her job to make sure she knew what was happening.”

Another source described as having worked in the White House says: “There isn’t enough water on earth to contain the fire she could set to all of Trump world, including parts like the first lady’s orbit, which not many people are in a position to illuminate. It’s hard to articulate how much anxiety this is going to cause.”

A spokeswoman for Donald Trump did not respond to a request for comment.

Books about the Trump presidency have proved hugely lucrative since Michael Wolff birthed the genre with Fire and Fury, in 2018. A huge crop of Trump books were published this summer, covering his final year in office and his refusal to admit defeat.

Later this month the Watergate reporter Bob Woodward will publish a third Trump book, Peril, written with another Washington Post staffer, Bob Costa.

Books about Melania Trump, including the controversial Melania & Me by her former friend and aide Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, have also sold well. – Guardian