Trump Replaces Spokeswoman Grisham With Campaign Aide McEnany

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump is replacing his press secretary Stephanie Grisham with Kayleigh McEnany, the top spokeswoman for his campaign, as the White House reshuffles its communications operation in the midst of a pandemic.

The shake-up is driven by Trump’s new chief of staff, Mark Meadows, with people close to the former North Carolina congressman assuming top communications jobs in the White House.

A Meadows aide, Ben Williamson, will become a senior communications adviser, and the Defense Department spokeswoman, Alyssa Farah, will be detailed to the White House as strategic communications director, according to people familiar with the matter. The principal deputy press secretary, Hogan Gidley, will remain in his job, two of the people said.

The people asked not to be identified because the moves haven’t been publicly announced. The White House press office declined to comment on the appointments.

Grisham was the first and only press secretary in modern presidential history never to brief reporters. She only occasionally fielded questions on television networks friendly to the White House.

She will also step down as communications director, a role she filled in addition to press secretary. She’ll take on a less prominent role as Melania Trump’s chief of staff, replacing Lindsay Reynolds, who left this week to spend more time with her family, according to a statement from the first lady.

The president himself had recently asked aides and others close to him for their views on Grisham’s efficacy, according to people familiar with the matter. Meadows had also been dissatisfied with the White House’s press and communications operations, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“We’ve done a poor job on press relationships,” Trump said at a March 17 press conference on the administration’s coronavirus response. “I guess I don’t know who to blame for that.”

Crisis Moves

Two deputy press secretaries, Judd Deere and Steven Groves, will also remain in their positions, the people said.

Grisham’s departure comes as Trump confronts the biggest crisis of his presidency: the coronavirus outbreak that his health experts have projected may kill more than 100,000 Americans while cratering the economy. The president has given daily televised briefings on the virus while Grisham has largely remained out of public view.

Grisham was serving in more roles than traditional press secretaries, also acting as communications director and spokeswoman for the first lady. Her departure follows those of Jessica Ditto and Adam Kennedy, two longtime Trump aides who together essentially ran the administration’s communications department.

Trump appointed Meadows last month to replace Mick Mulvaney. Neither chief of staff has been prominently involved in the government’s response to the coronavirus crisis.

McEnany, 31, is viewed as a Trump loyalist and senior officials believe her extensive television background will help her in her new role as chief White House spokeswoman.

But some of her on-air comments have also drawn scrutiny. During a March 11 appearance on Fox Business Network, McEnany defended the Trump campaign’s reluctance to cancel rallies even though Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders scrapped theirs.

“Look, the president is the best authority on this issue ... Right now, we are proceeding as normal,” McEnany said, while accusing Biden of “looking for an excuse to get off the campaign trail.”

Trump began canceling campaign events the following day.

Grisham’s rise to the position of press secretary -- a job that comes not only with one of the largest offices in the West Wing, but one of the highest profiles in the White House -- was remarkably meteoric.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Grisham worked as a press wrangler, herding reporters around campaign events. She was hired from Arizona where she had worked as a spokeswoman for the statehouse’s Republican majority – and precipitated a major flap when she sought to revoke the press credentials of a reporter who had written critically about state House Speaker David Gowan.

The effort ultimately failed, as did Grisham’s effort last year to revoke the White House press credential of a Playboy reporter who engaged in a shorting match with former White House aide Sebastian Gorka during an event in the Rose Garden. A federal judge blocked the administration’s bid to suspend the pass.

Before her work in Republican politics, Grisham did public affairs work for the AAA auto club of Arizona and an online service called GarageFly. The New York Times reported that she left the first job amid accusations she filed false travel expense claims and the second after a plagiarism accusation. Grisham was also twice arrested for driving under the influence during her time in Arizona.

But those incidents did little to stop her rise within the White House, where she parlayed a close relationship with Melania Trump into a job leading East Wing press relations and increasing influence. When former press secretary Sarah Sanders decided to depart the administration to return home to Arkansas – where she’s writing a book and pondering a run for governor – the president selected Grisham to take over the job.

Briefing Reluctance

Grisham’s reluctance to hold press briefings was seen by some in the White House as an effort to stave off a potentially embarrassing policy gaffe as she pivoted into a job with a far more expansive portfolio than she handled in the first lady’s office, and a desire to allow the president to defend himself directly during the contentious impeachment hearings on Capitol Hill. But by January, her absence from the podium prompted an open letter signed by seven former press secretaries spanning each of the past three administrations calling on Grisham to restore regular briefings.

Grisham dismissed the letter as “groupthink at its finest” in a statement to Axios and said press complaints over her absence were motivated by White House reporters who “can’t grandstand on TV.”

It wasn’t the only time Grisham proved prickly when asked about her refusal to hold briefings. Later that month, she sent Washington Post columnist Erik Wemple a full accounting of her schedule on a given morning and told the paper that she believed the sessions had “turned into more shouting and arguing and gotcha moments over substantive back and forth, which is why I have Cabinet Secretaries and other subject matter experts out there when needed.”

The White House’s turn to confront the coronavirus crisis also coincided with a waning of influence for Grisham within the West Wing.

Hope Hicks, who previously held the communications director title, returned to the administration after briefly working in communications for Fox Corporation. Katie Miller, the press secretary to Vice President Mike Pence and spouse of senior presidential adviser Stephen Miller, was given primary responsibility for organizing the administration’s coronavirus media appearances and press statements.

And Grisham was forced to quarantine at home after contact with members of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s delegation during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago. While Bolsonaro press secretary Fabio Wajngarten tested positive for the virus, Grisham eventually tested negative and returned to work.

In the interim, however, the president moved to restore the daily White House press briefings -- but with himself at the podium, not his press secretary.

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