Trump Picks Melania’s Spox Stephanie “The Enforcer” Grisham To Replace Sarah Sanders

By
Gary Fenster
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I am pleased to announce @StephGrisham45 will be the next @PressSec & Comms Director! She has been with us since 2015 – @potus & I can think of no better person to serve the Administration & our country.” With those words Melania Trump revealed that President Trump had officially chosen Sarah Sanders’ replacement.

Stephanie was dubbed the ‘enforcer’ for fiercely protecting Melania Trump from the media. No doubts she will need that quality more than ever now.

From CNN: Melania Trump’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham will get a major new role as both White House press secretary and communications director, the first lady tweeted Tuesday.

“I am pleased to announce @StephGrisham45 will be the next @PressSec & Comms Director! She has been with us since 2015 – @POTUS & I can think of no better person to serve the Administration & our country. Excited to have Stephanie working for both sides of the @WhiteHouse. #BeBest” Melania Trump tweeted.

President Donald Trump didn’t look far for his next press secretary in Grisham, who for the past two years has been the communications director for the first lady. Grisham will keep her current job too.

However, Trump has tweaked the job duties before handing the reins to Grisham, whose purview will include a larger scope of responsibility than that of her predecessor Sarah Sanders, and one as yet unprecedented in this administration. Trump has appointed Grisham both White House director of communications as well as press secretary, a senior White House official tells CNN. Grisham will be assuming the roles formerly held by Bill Shine, who departed as White House communications director in March, and Sanders, who has said her last day will be this Friday.

Additionally, Grisham will remain in charge of communications for the East Wing in addition to her new West Wing responsibilities, staying on as the spokeswoman for the first lady, says the official.

Grisham will be accompanying the President in her new capacity on his trip to Japan and Korea this week.

Grisham has been with team Trump longer than anyone currently in the White House, with the exception of Dan Scavino, both of whom started on the Trump campaign in 2015. Prior to that, Grisham worked as a spokeswoman and communications operative, mostly in Republican politics, in her home state of Arizona; in 2012, she briefly worked on Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. Before joining Trump’s campaign, she was operating her own public relations and communications company in Arizona, but decided to commit to the role of traveling press director after assisting with a July 2015 rally in Phoenix by then-candidate Trump.

Once part of the campaign, Grisham wrangled media as Trump canvassed the country. After Trump took office, Grisham served as deputy press secretary in the West Wing during Sean Spicer’s tenure.

However, Grisham soon caught the eye of first lady Melania Trump, who was impressed by Grisham’s assistance during the first visit of Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie Abe to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, in February 2017. By the end of March, Grisham had made the move to the East Wing.

During her time with the first lady, Grisham has handled much of the responsibility of the first lady’s forward-facing presence where she’s made a name for herself as a dogged, if caustic, defender.

Dubbed “the enforcer” in a 2018 Washington Post profile, Grisham’s job is to thwart as much as possible the criticism levied at the first lady on topics that have ranged from picking cyberbullying as part of her platform to Trump’s need for privacy during a secretive kidney operation last April.

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