In her second day guest hosting “The View,” former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham opened up about why she stuck around in his administration as long as she did. Then, she outright apologized.
In the first “Hot Topics” discussion of the day, the panel of women dug in on recent convictions and sentencing of those involved with the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. The hosts then turned to Grisham, asking point blank if she knew about the events of the day in advance.
Grisham said she didn’t, but admitted she had a “feeling” something was up. As the conversation progressed, host Sunny Hostin got a bit blunt.
“I have to ask, why did it take an insurrection to get you to quit?” she questioned.
“It’s a great, fair question,” Grisham responded. “I tried to resign many times. When I got to the West Wing, I realized it was a really bad environment. I saw with my own eyes — I hadn’t seen with my own eyes — some of the things that he did and said.”
Grisham added that Melania Trump had talked her out of resigning multiple times, and admitted that when Trump first took office, she did believe in him.
“Excuse me, what did you believe in?” Behar interjected. “His policies? Because you know he was a sexist misogynist, you heard the tapes about grabbing women, all that. So what did you agree with?”
As Grisham explained herself, the hosts pressed further, with Hostin telling her point blank, “You screwed up. To that, Grisham conceded, but explained herself a bit further.
“If I were to leave, I’m a single mom who needs a job. And let me tell you, no one was gonna hire me, good, bad or ugly, after two years, three years, four years. I had to think about that,” Grisham said. “But my point is now, I messed up. I am sorry. I will say that ’til the end of time.
“But I want to give people an off-ramp, and I’m gonna do everything I can to educate people, not talk down to them, educate people about who he really is. He is a con man. That it is a cult-like thing, and it is OK to just get off.”
You can watch the full discussion in the video above.