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Stephanie Grisham is out as White House Press Secretary without ever holding a briefing

Stephanie Grisham is out as White House Press Secretary without ever holding a briefing

The role of White House Press Secretary has seen quite a curious evolution during the administration of a man who prefers to directly address the nation through 240-character outbursts, and it appears it will do so again with the news that current Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham will no longer be filling that role.

The most recent of the perennial shufflings of Trump White House staff has ended with Rep. Mark Meadows (R-CA) in the role of Chief of Staff, who in turn has decided to send Grisham back to her original post in the First Lady’s office.

It’s unlikely that the nation at large will notice the change; Grisham earned herself the unenviable distinction of being the first White House Press Secretary to never hold a single press briefing during her tenure.

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The daily press briefing was once a fairly pedestrian ritual in past administrations but was turned into a circus of outrageous lies and sycophantic Dear Leader veneration by Trump Press Secretaries Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Frustrated by the incessant criticism that these mockeries of our government inevitably earned, the White House apparently decided to just do away with them entirely.

Axios reports that Meadows is considering giving the job to current Pentagon spokeswoman Alyssa Farah, who previously served as Vice-President Pence’s press secretary, or current Trump re-election campaign press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

Grisham’s tenure was a perniciously unremarkable symbol of how basic government transparency has been obliterated by a Trump administration utterly disinterested in engaging with the public, while her departure is yet another example of the constant chaos and dysfunction that grips a Trump administration entirely unprepared to grapple with the basic functions of governance — let alone the arduous demands of managing a pandemic.

Original reporting by Jonathan Swan and Alayna Treene at Axios.

Are you sad to see Grisham leave? Did you even know she had the job? Scroll down and let us know in our new comment section!

Colin Taylor
Opinion columnist and former editor-in-chief of Occupy Democrats. He graduated from Bennington College with a Bachelor's degree in history and political science. He now focuses on advancing the cause of social justice and equality in America.

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