Stephanie Grisham out as White House press secretary, will head first lady’s staff

WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham is leaving the job after eight months during which she held no regular press briefings of the sort that once defined the job.

First lady Melania Trump announced Tuesday that Grisham would rejoin her staff as a full-time chief of staff and spokesperson, calling her "a mainstay and true leader in the Administration."

Grisham was not a fixture in the inner circle of advisers to President Donald Trump, as her predecessor Sarah Sanders had been, although White House officials have praised her loyalty.

The White House did not immediately name a successor for Grisham, who has also held the job of communications director.

Grisham said in a statement that her replacements would be announced "in the coming days" and that she would remain in the West Wing "to help with a smooth transition for as long as needed."

Grisham has been mostly absent from Trump's near-daily press briefings about the novel coronavirus pandemic, most held in the same James S. Brady Press Briefing Room where past press secretaries held their own daily question-and-answer sessions.

Grisham entered voluntary quarantine after learning she had been exposed to two or more people who later tested positive for covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, during a March 7 dinner at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club.

The White House announced on March 24 that she had tested negative and would return to work the following day.

Axios had reported last week that new White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was exploring whether to replace Grisham, perhaps with Pentagon press secretary Alyssa Farah, who was previously the top spokeswoman for Vice President Mike Pence and who had earlier worked for Meadows when he was in Congress.

Grisham issued a statement to Axios that stopped short of denying any plans might be afoot to replace her.

"Sounds like more palace intrigue to me, but I've also been in quarantine. If true, how ironic that the press secretary would hear about being replaced in the press," she said.

Meadows is reportedly interested in restoring more regular briefings, something Trump has recently mused about in discussions with friends.

During her tenure, Grisham's public profile was defined mainly by her guest appearances on television. She was interviewed frequently on Fox News and by conservative media outlets, while her off-camera engagements with much of the traditional White House press corps grew increasingly contentious.

She was praised for throwing herself between North Korean guards and the small group of American reporters who accompanied Trump during his brief visit to the Demilitarized Zone between South Korea and North Korea last June.

By blocking for the press when Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Grisham made sure that American news cameras and reporters were able to witness the meeting. Trump's interaction with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The Secret Service intervened as North Korean guards pushed and shoved American reporters to block them from entering the Inter-Korean House of Freedom south of the border, where Trump and Kim were meeting.

Grisham was bruised when she stepped into the chaotic scene to give U.S. media a pathway into the meeting room.

She rejected criticism that the White House had become less transparent and accountable with the lack of daily public interaction with reporters. Trump himself performed that role, Grisham said, pointing to the president's frequent impromptu news conferences during White House events or before boarding his helicopter.

A tweet Grisham sent March 31, replying to veteran White House reporter Steve Holland of Reuters, sums up her back seat approach.

"The most accessible @POTUS in modern history! Members of the media get to ask direct questions & the American people get to hear directly from @realDonaldTrump, @Mike_Pence & medical experts on the vital topic of #COVID19," she wrote.

Holland had observed that one of the Trump-led sessions had run more than two hours.

Grisham, who worked on Trump's 2016 campaign, was his third White House press secretary. Sanders replaced Sean Spicer, and discontinued the practice of daily or near-daily press briefings. She held them periodically; the last was in March 2019.

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The Washington Post’s John Wagner contributed to this report.