‘I Do’: Stephanie Grisham Straight-Up Confesses Her Enabling Trump Cost Lives During Covid

Stephanie Grisham came clean on some massive issues during a Tuesday morning interview with CNN’s New Day.

The former White House Communications Director, Press Secretary, and Chief of Staff for the First Lady under the Trump administration is on a media tour promotion of her new book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now, which reveals several fascinating insights from her ringside seat to former President Donald Trump.

Co-hosts John Berman and Briana Keilar were unsparing in their question of Grisham, which was evident in the last of a multi-segment appearance on the CNN morning show. Grisham admitted how bad was the Trump administration — and the current political environment — saying, “I just want people to understand how toxic it is. It’s really toxic.”

As the conversation turned to Trump’s continued and baseless claims of election fraud, which started when he was still in office and Grisham was still at the White House, Berman asked, “Did you harm democracy? Do you feel you played a role in hurting democracy?”

“I do,” she replied. “Though I absolutely and positively have not — you know, I believe Biden is our president. I believe that the election was valid. I think right now, that is one of our biggest threats to democracy. We can’t just stomp our feet and say, oh, no, you know, I didn’t win this. We have an election system. I think there are always anomalies. But yes is my short role. I think I played a role in a very, very bad time.”

Later, it was Keilar’s turn as the “big lie” of election fraud turned to misinformation about Covid-19 and the underlying science that many Americans appear to be willing to consume. “You were enabling the big lie by the acquiescence, by being there for months while he told it, but you were also there during Covid,” Keilar noted, before asking, “In this totality, do you think your enabling cost lives?

“I do,” she replied. “I think the way we handled Covid was tragic. I think that the president’s vanity got in the way. He was working for his base. He was not working for this country. He, you know, didn’t wear a mask quickly enough.”

“And this isn’t an excuse, but I also worked for Mrs. Trump. I was so proud because she was out there doing press and wearing a mask and trying to push it,” she continued. “Naive as this is, I kept hoping she would convince her husband, you know, ‘Please get out there, Donald. Get out there.’ But, yes, again, I was part of that. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself with respect to covid. I don’t think I can ever redeem myself.”

Though her candor was perhaps self-serving, it was nonetheless refreshing to see something so rare as complete ownership. But she did not get a pass from the anchors, as Berman summed up the interview with “The number of choices that you made over five or six years, it’s immeasurable. I mean, it’s hard to say, oh, I just realized now, after six years, that this was all a really bad idea. A deadly, in some cases, bad idea.”

Watch above via CNN.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com