Melania and White House aides called Ivanka and Jared ‘the interns’ because they were ‘obnoxious’

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Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham’s new book is packed with condemnations of power couple Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump – and claims they meddled and muddied the early response to the coronavirus pandemic.

She writes in her new tell-all book that Kushner’s ‘arrogance and presumption had grown over the years, and he threw his power about with absolutely no shame.’ 

‘He was Rasputin in a slim-fitting suit,’ she writes of Trump’s son-in-law, comparing him to the mystical and influential advisor to Czar Nicholas II of Russia before the 1917 revolution.

Grisham, a longtime Trump aide who later served as chief of staff to former first lady Melania Trump, writes that Kushner often took over meetings – even when Vice President Mike Pence was there – as the ‘real’ chief of staff.

But she and Melania Trump also sometimes dissed Javanka as ‘the interns’ for their tendency to jump into all manner of subjects in the White House. 

‘When I worked for the first lady in the East Wing, we had all come to call Jared and Ivanka “the interns” because they represented in our minds obnoxious, entitled know-it-alls,’ writes Grisham in her new book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now, with her musings on Javanka excerpted in Politico.

Their involvement became problematic in the early days of the pandemic, as the White House struggled to come up with a policy and a communications response. 

‘Mrs. Trump found that nickname amusing and occasionally used it herself. Now, during one of the most important crises to hit the country in a century, the interns were behaving true to form,’ she writes. 

‘It was another example of Jared sticking his nose into things that weren’t his expertise.’

One clash came in March, after the World Health Organization had declared COVID-19 a pandemic. 

Top aides were debating a partial travel ban – and whether Trump should address the nation to convey the seriousness of the pandemic. 

Grisham invited herself to one of the meetings she writes ‘just “happened” all the time.’

Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx were there, and advisors pitched closing the nation’s borders to travelers from Europe. Another topic was whether Trump should speak to the nation amid growing alarm.

‘In the middle of all the discussion, Ivanka kept chiming in, “But I think there should probably be an address to the nation tonight.” I let that pass because in my mind there was no way we could pull one off with no speech prepared, no communications strategy, no consensus on anything we had just started discussing, and only a few hours’ notice,’ writes Grisham. ‘We did a lot of random things in Trump World, but that just seemed too crazy even for us.’

Aides clashed over whether the nation should close borders (although the initial policy would take hits for being inconsistent).

‘Finally, Ivanka turned to her most powerful ally besides her father. “Jared, don’t you agree?” Any guesses as to what Jared replied?’ Grisham writes.

She had her own doubts about a presidential address – but admits she didn’t share them at the time.

‘In my mind I kept saying, “This is not a reality TV show. We cannot address the nation with a bunch of mumbo jumbo just so he looks presidential. That’s not how this works,’ she wrote. 

And Ivanka, the women’s rights / small-business / crisis communications / and now Covid expert, just kept repeating, “There should be an address from the Oval.”

Trump told aides to ‘figure out what to do,’ according to Grisham.

That led to more interventions by the president’s daughter, writes Grisham. Both Jared and Ivanka served as unpaid senior advisors to the president. 

‘Ivanka was also doing her “my father” wants this and “my father” thinks that routine, making it impossible for staff members to argue a contrary view,’ she wrote.

She was ‘outraged’ by Kushner’s behavior because ‘he was not an expert’ on borders, the economy, or health consequences of the moves Trump would announce. 

‘After he wrote the speech, there was no time for fact-checking, vetting, or notifying friends and allies on the Hill or abroad. There was hardly any time for the president to read it and make changes to it. It was a total clusterf*** from start to finish because Ivanka and her crew wanted her father to be on TV.’

‘And of course the speech that night contained a number of misstatements and sloppy wording,’ she wrote. But when Trump’s speech and delivery led to some confusion and required cleanup, it didn’t weight down the power couple. 

‘No, they were in the dining room off of the Oval Office, Trump’s usual hangout, congratulating themselves and telling the president how awesome he was.’ 

Grisham quit the White House after the Capitol riot Jan. 6th. 

Neither Ivanka Trump nor Jared Kushner have commented on the book, although former President Trump trashed it in a statement that went after Grisham’s personal life (she previously dated former Trump White House aide Max Miller).

‘Stephanie didn’t have what it takes and that was obvious from the beginning. She became very angry and bitter after her break up and as time went on she was seldom relied upon, or even thought about. She had big problems and we felt that she should work out those problems for herself. Now, like everyone else, she gets paid by a radical left-leaning publisher to say bad and untrue things,’ Trump said in a statement through his spokeswoman.

 

Trump told Stephanie Grisham he didn’t have a ‘toad-shaped penis’ during Melania’s campaign of revenge over Stormy Daniels affair  

The ex-press secretary also recalled how Trump insisted his penis was not shaped like a toadstool – responding to comments made by porn star Stormy Daniels.   

Daniels wrote in a 2018 book on her affair with the former president: ‘I lay there, annoyed that I was getting f***ed by a guy with Yeti pubes and a d*** like the mushroom character in Mario Kart.’  

Trump, upon hearing the allegation, called his press secretary from Air Force one to assure her his penis was neither small nor shaped like a toadstool, Grisham said.

Grisham also wrote that the former president once asked her former boyfriend, Miller, if she was good in bed. 

The Daniels affair, Grisham wrote, ‘unleashed’ Melania’s vengeance as she began trying to contradict her husband in public. 

The first lady told Grisham she didn’t believe her husband’s denials.  

When Grisham drafted a tweet requesting privacy at the time of the affair, saying that Melania would focus on being a first lady, wife and mother, the first lady asked Grisham to scrub the tweet of the word ‘wife.’  

Trump would cut his hair with giant scissors and tunes from his favorite musicals would calm him down  

Grisham’s includes bizarre details about Trump’s behavior. 

For instance, she claims he cuts his hair with a ‘huge pair of scissors that could probably cut a ribbon at an opening of one of his properties.’  

She also writes that one of Trump’s aides – later revealed to be Grisham’s ex-boyfriend Max Miller, who is running for an Ohio Congressional seat and has been endorsed by Trump – would play him his favorite show tunes, including ‘Memory’ from Cats, to calm him down during tantrums. 

Grisham described Trump’s temper as ‘terrifying. 

Trump takes interest in a young press aide 

Trump continued the womanizing behavior he was known for as a brash Manhattan real estate tycoon at the White House, Grisham revealed, writing that he repeatedly invited a young press aide to his Air Force One cabin – one time to look at her behind. 

‘A couple of times I came close to telling Mrs. Trump about the president’s behavior. I thought that if she would say one little word to him about it, she could make it stop. But I could never bring myself to say anything,’ Grisham wrote.

Ultimately, she was too ‘chickens***’ to tell the then-first lady or ‘maybe it wasn’t my place or any of my business,’ she noted.

And she reveals Melania Trump may still not know about the former president’s behavior.

Grisham revealed in her book that the former president took ‘an unusual interest in a young, highly attractive press wrangler on my team.’

She details what she called inappropriate behavior by Trump and noted she tried to protect the staffer, who she doesn’t name.

Grisham writes Trump would tell her to put the staffer ‘on TV. Keep her happy, promote her.’ 

Trump, a former reality TV star, consider being on TV a great compliment and hired some of his staff and lawyers based on their appearances on Fox News.  

Grisham also reveals that on one Air Force One trip Trump asked that the staffer be brought to his cabin, saying: ‘Let’s bring her up here and look at her ass.’ 

She said after that she tried to keep the staffer off trips: ‘I needed to protect her and, frankly, the president as well.’    

Melania’s ‘I Really Don’t Care, Do U?’ jacket remains shrouded in mystery  

Later that year, Melania Trump would seemingly go rogue again when she wore a ‘I Really Don’t Care, Do U?’ Zara jacket on a trip to tour a Texas Health and Human Services facility where migrant children were being housed. 

A handful of the children at the McAllen facility had been separated from their families due to the controversial Trump immigration policy.   

Grisham said the first lady had purchased the $39 jacket herself – and Melania Trump never gave a solid explanation as to why she wore it. 

She told Grisham that it was just a jacket, when they were trying to figure out damage control on the plane. 

Upon arrival at the White House, the president told an aide that the first lady needed to come to the Oval Office. 

Grisham said it was the first time she’d seen the president summon the first lady that way in front of staff.  

He yelled and asked ‘what the [expletive] they thought they were doing, The Post said. 

Trump then devised a plan and tweeted out that the message was meant for the ‘Fake News.’ 

The first lady continued to repeat that story in interviews – but the real reason she wore the jacket remains unknown.   

Trump wanted Grisham to evict the press and reenact his perfect phone call 

During her time serving as White House press secretary, Trump asked Grisham to find a way to remove the press from the White House premises. 

He also wanted her to re-enact his ‘perfect’ phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for them. 

She revealed that a trip to North Korea inspired Trump to ask her to find ways he could evict the White House press corps from the James Brady briefing room – a place he frequently held news conferences and bantered with reporters. 

‘I researched different places we could put them other than the press briefing room. Each time the president asked me about my progress on the matter, I let him know I was still working on options,’ Grisham wrote.

Grisham, who was notable for never holding a press briefing as White House press secretary, explains she didn’t do so out of fears of what Trump would ask her to say at the podium. 

Trump’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer, famously argued Trump’s inauguration crowd was ‘the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration’ – claim that did not match side-by-side photos of Trump’s inauguration with Barack Obama’s and destroyed his credibility. 

‘I knew that sooner or later the president would want me to tell the public something that was not true or that would make me sound like a lunatic,’ she noted.

She also detailed one of Trump’s more outlandish requests – that she appear before the press corps and reenact his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which led to his first impeachment. 

She managed to avoid doing it.

Trump, himself, famously like to reenact the call by reliving what he and Zelensky said, using different tones of voices to make his point. 

Trump’s mysterious medical procedure at Walter Reed was likely a colonoscopy

While Grisham didn’t name the procedure, the former Trump aide strongly hinted that what Trump went to Walter Reed for in November 2019 was a colonoscopy – without anesthesia.  

In the book, Grisham described it as a ‘very common procedure’ where ‘a patient is sometimes put under.’ 

The reason for the secrecy, Grisham explained, was that Trump didn’t want to hand over power to Vice President Mike Pence, even for a short amount of time, because it would be ‘showing weakness.’ 

He also didn’t want to be ‘the butt of the joke,’ she wrote, on late-night TV.   

 On the day of Trump’s Walter Reed trip, Grisham as press secretary told reporters that Trump had traveled to the Bethesda, Maryland facility for a physical.  

‘Anticipating a very busy 2020, the President is taking advantage of a free weekend here in Washington, D.C., to begin portions of his routine annual physical exam at Walter Reed,’ Grisham said.   

Grisham expressed that the concealment was regrettable. 

She noted in the book that Trump could have used his influence to demystify colonoscopies – and thus save lives.

‘But as with COVID, he was too wrapped up in his own ego and his own delusions about his invincibility,’ Grisham said.   

White House staff called Ivanka ‘the princess’ and she and Jared tried to push their way into a meeting with the Queen 

Aides to former President Donald Trump referred to his daughter Ivanka as ‘the princess,’ Grisham said. 

Grisham wrote that Melania Trump also referred to Ivanka by the name.  

Ivanka, who served as an unpaid senior advisor to the president, regularly referred to him as ‘my father’ in meetings, she writes. Ivanka sometimes used the term in public.

Grisham terms her husband, former White House aide Jared Kushner, ‘the Slim Reaper’ for getting involved in projects designated for others, she wrote.

Grisham also wrote that the power couple tried to get themselves into a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II during Trump’s visit to the UK in 2019.

Only the president and first lady attended. 

It would have been a ‘wild breach of protocol,’ according to The Post. 

Kushner and Ivanka Trump did attend a state dinner. 

Grisham writes that the situation was resolved when they couldn’t fit into a presidential helicopter.

Team Trump claims book is another ‘pitiful attempt to cash in on his strength’ 

‘This book is another pitiful attempt to cash in on the President’s strength and sell lies about the Trump family, said Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington. 

Harrington termed Grisham a ‘a disgruntled former employee’ – a term has applied in the past to aides who have written tell-alls. 

She said the book’s publishers ‘should be ashamed of themselves for preying on desperate people who see the short term gain in writing a book full of falsehoods.’

Publisher Harper Collins calls the book ‘The most frank and intimate portrait of the Trump White House yet.’

Grisham was among the flurry of Trump officials who resigned from their posts on January 6, in the aftermath of the Capitol riot.

Trump went after Grisham personally in a statement released Tuesday morning. 

‘Stephanie didn’t have what it takes and that was obvious from the beginning,’ Trump said. ‘She had big problems and we felt that she should work out those problems for herself. Now, like everyone else, she gets paid by a radical left-leaning publisher to say bad and untrue things.’

‘We and the MAGA movement are totally used to it. And someday in the not too distant future we will have our voice back and be treated fairly by the press,’ the ex-president added. 

Trump once claimed Justin Trudeau’s actress mother Margaret had sex with all of The Rolling Stones in the 1970s  

Donald Trump once accused Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s mom of sleeping with all the Rolling Stones, Grisham writes.. 

He made the comment about former Canadian First Lady Margaret Trudeau to Grisham during an Air Force One flight, according to an excerpt released Friday.

‘Once, on Air Force One, I was sitting with him in his cabin, and for whatever reason — maybe he had just read something or seen his face on TV — Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau popped into the president’s head,’ Grisham writes. 

She said Trump asked her, ‘Are you OK if I say this?’ – what Grisham noted was ‘always a troubling question.’ 

‘Who knew what was going to come out of his mouth? Sure, I nodded,’ Grisham recounts. 

The message was: ‘Trudeau’s mom. She f**ked all of the Rolling Stones.’