Campaign

Ex-White House aide says Trump won’t ‘be happy’ staying on message: ‘It’s not who he is’

by Nick Robertson - 08/14/24 8:59 AM ET

Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, March 12, 2020. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Former White House aide Stephanie Grisham said Tuesday that she believes former President Trump will struggle to stay on message, saying it is “not who he is” to stick to small venues and on-topic conversations.

“Maybe for a week he’ll, you know, attempt to stay on message,” Grisham said in an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett. “It depends on how tough his staff is being with him. But he will get bored. He doesn’t like those small [events]. He never has, and he will be demanding to do a large rally sooner rather than later.”

“It’s funny, because everything I’ve been hearing is, you know, all these people are saying to do the best version of himself. They want him to be a fake version of himself,” she continued. “Donald Trump is a bombastic narcissist, and he loves attention, and he is not going to be happy being quiet or being on message.”

The former White House press secretary has turned into a vocal critic of her former boss. She said that, during the 2016 campaign, staffers similarly struggled to keep Trump on message.

“It’s not who he is. And so, they all know that. Look, we did this a million times. We did it in 2016. We did it throughout our time in the White House,” Grisham said. “We were all trying to keep them on message. Everybody was frustrated, all the time. We went through tons and tons of staff. You all know that. And this is just, you know, version 27 now.”

Notable Republicans have also struggled to keep Trump on track, with rising calls from party insiders to keep the message at the center of Trump’s campaign as Vice President Harris sees rising momentum. Instead of throwing insults at his political rivals, many have pressed the former president to focus more on the policy differences between the two parties.

“It’s not that he’s not talking about the economy, it’s not that he’s not talking about the border. It’s that he’s talking about all these other crazy things as well that distract you,” Brendan Buck, a former aide to former Speakers Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and John Boehner (R-Ohio), said earlier this week on MSNBC.