White House Press Secretary and Communications Director Stephanie Grisham appeared on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” on Friday morning, where she touched on a wide range of issues, including the recent meeting that Democratic leaders had with President Donald Trump.
“I’ll tell you what. I was in that meeting,” Grisham said. “The president walked in. He greeted everybody, as he does, and Speaker Pelosi started out the meeting – it was actually quite bizarre. She had no intentions of sitting there. We had military people. We had people there to brief them. And she was not going to listen.”
“She got up. She stormed out. Her focus was getting to the cameras,” Grisham continued. “It was funny to watch Schumer chase after her. I think he was a little worried that if he didn’t leave with her, that she would get angry with him.”
“The president was measured. He stayed behind and he worked with the Democrats who actually remained behind, too,” Grisham concluded on the issue. “And we continued the briefing, and that was it. Again, this president has work to do. We’re not going to be swayed by all of the Dems and the theater that they continue to perform every day.”
News of the meeting went instantly viral as Trump tweeted out a photo of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s meltdown inside the room, writing: “Nervous Nancy’s unhinged meltdown!”
Nervous Nancy’s unhinged meltdown! pic.twitter.com/RDeUI7sfe7
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2019
Outside the White House, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer addressed the media about what transpired, claiming that Trump called Pelosi a “third-rate politician” and told Democratic leaders regarding Syria, “There are communists involved, and you guys might like that.”
WATCH:
Wide-ranging interview with Stephanie Grisham on #FoxAndFriends. pic.twitter.com/yVZch7hJZp
— (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) October 19, 2019
The following is the full transcript of White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham’s interview on “Fox & Friends” provided via Fox News:
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The economy is booming. Our people are prospering. Our country is thriving. And our nation is stronger than ever before. But the more America achieves, the more hateful and enraged these crazy Democrats become.
You know, I really don’t believe anymore that they love our country. I don’t believe it.
CROWD (chanting): Four more years. Four more years. Four more years. Four more years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE DOOCY, FOX HOST: I think he likes that part.
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX HOST: Right.
AINSLEY EARHARDT, FOX HOST: Four more years.
KILMEADE: Twenty-eight minutes now before the top of the hour.
Stephanie Grisham was there last night during the fun. And I imagine it seems like fun for just about everyone. We’ve had reporters there. And she joins us right now as White House press secretary among your many jobs.
Stephanie, how hard was it for the president to turn the page on what he left in Washington, and the chaos from the day before with the speaker leaving the meeting along with Senator Schumer, and go onto that stage and put that behind him?
STEPHANIE GRISHAM, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It wasn’t hard at all. The president is still working for this country. He went to Texas yesterday for an official event. He opened up a workshop, a new Louis Vuitton workshop that is supposed to bring 1,000 jobs into Texas. And then he went to that amazing rally. Full. More than 20,000 people there. He’s got no problem with continuing to work on behalf of the American people, talking about all that he’s doing for the American people. And the rest in Washington is just noise. It’s just the Dems doing what they do.
DOOCY: Well, what they’re doing right now is there’s this impeachment inquiry, which Congress has not voted on, and the president has made it very clear, he said, look, you know, he said the president says he’s never done anything wrong as president and they’re just trying to re-litigate the 2016 election that they lost and they don’t like it.
GRISHAM: That’s absolutely what they’re doing. It’s comical. You know, I mean, I was with the president on the campaign, of course, and then watching since the day we took office they have been throwing temper tantrum after temper tantrum trying to undo. And really it’s only gaining momentum. And the people of this country know what the Dems are doing. They’re tired of it.
And, like I said, the president’s just going to still continue to work. He’s going to work on immigration, on health care, on bringing jobs to this country, on the economy, on the opioids crisis. He is a man who has a goal. He’s been successful all along. And the Dems are certainly not going to stop. It’s the JV.
EARHARDT: So, Vice President Pence and Secretary Pompeo returned to Washington this morning. The president was touting the ceasefire. And then overnight there were more bombings and there was smoke in the air. Our reports are that civilians are losing their lives in this one city. They’re shelling. Smoke, machine gunfire. How is the president going to respond to this?
GRISHAM: You know, I want to just say that the president, as president, has an obligation to look out for the troops and to protect this country. And when President Erdogan made it clear that he was going to invade, the president acted decisively to pull our military out of harm’s way.
Now, he sent a delegation over and they were successful in a cease-fire, but that takes time. I’m not going to get into operations on the ground, of course. I’ll leave that to the Department of Defense. But the president is to protect our country. He is putting America first. He’s always said that. We’re not going to be in these never-ending wars anymore. And, again, as for the cease-fire, I’m really, really happy that our delegation was successful. And we’ll leave it at that.
KILMEADE: Stephanie, a couple of things. We know what happened at the White House the other day, or there’s two different accounts of what took place. And you say the president was calm, cool, and collected. Nancy Pelosi said he had a meltdown. Now she says she wants all the meetings recorded. Will you record every meeting for the speaker?
DOOCY: Yes, that worked out so well once upon a time.
GRISHAM: Well, I mean, we would love for these impeachment inquiries to be transparent as well. We’d love for those meetings to be recorded or for us to have access to that. So maybe once she agrees to opening up this kangaroo court of hers, we could record the meetings that happen in the White House.
I’ll tell you what. I was in that meeting. The president walked in. He greeted everybody, as he does. And Speaker Pelosi started out the meeting – it was actually quite bizarre. She had no intentions of sitting there. We had military people. We had people there to brief them, and she was not going to listen.
She got up. She stormed out. Her focus was getting to the cameras. It was funny to watch Schumer chase after her. I think he was a little worried that if he didn’t leave with her, that she would get angry with him.
I was in the meeting. The president was measured. He stayed behind and he worked with the Democrats who actually remained behind, too. And we continued the briefing, and that was it.
Again, this president has work to do. We’re not going to be swayed by all of the Dems and the theater that they continue to perform every day.
DOOCY: Well, I think that picture that we’re looking at right there is now Nancy Pelosi’s official Twitter picture where she is doing that right there next to the president.
Speaking of the president, yesterday it was announced that apparently the G-7 Summit, which is going to be next year, during the summer –
GRISHAM: Yes.
DOOCY: Is going to be at Doral –
GRISHAM: Correct.
DOOCY: Which is the golf course resort owned by his family. And a lot of people are saying, number one, in the summer it’s really hot in Florida. Just telling you ahead of time. But the other thing is, you know, while the president might say, I’m not making any money off this thing, the promotional value, the marketing value is off the chart.
GRISHAM: I don’t know if that’s the case. I’ll tell you what, the way the media, the mainstream media, is covering it, I don’t know that the Trump Organization would agree with that. I will tell you this, we –
DOOCY: But everybody knows about it now.
GRISHAM: Well, everybody knew about it before the president took office. I mean the Trump brand is known everywhere. And I do want to say this, we had members of our military office, Secret Service, advance teams, we had several people, the State Department, go out to 10 different states and look at 12 different sites. Doral was one of those sites. All of them came back and made the recommendations to the president that Doral is the perfect place to hold such a summit.
You’ve got to imagine the things that go into looking at these sites. You need hotel rooms that will allow for the foreign delegations to come and their staff. Transportation needs to be nearby. Airports, hospitals, helicopter landing zones. We had one site that we looked at, I won’t name what site it was or what state was it is, but the altitude could have make people sick and oxygen tanks would have been brought in. So there’s a lot that goes into these things.
KILMEADE: Denver.
EARHARDT: Colorado.
GRISHAM: Nope. Wrong.
KILMEADE: OK.
DOOCY: In the mountains. Somewhere in the mountains.
KILMEADE: Not New Mexico. Stephanie, why didn’t you do the press conference yesterday? Why did Mick Mulvaney? And will we see you do these press conferences, which is traditionally what the While House press secretary does?
GRISHAM: You know, right now, I’ve said this a bunch, if the president ever wants me to go out and take that podium, I will happily do it. I think as evidenced by yesterday with Mick, it was, again, more theater. It is about people wanting to be on TV and making names for themselves.
And Mick took 30 – he was over there for more than 30 minutes. He took probably 40 questions. People were talking over one another. He did a great job. He mentioned the same message over and over and over and now the media, of course, is, you know, we put a statement out clarifying some of the things that the media got themselves in a tizzy over.
But to answer your question, sure, I’ll do it if I need to, but this president speaks for himself every day. He offers opportunities for the press corps to ask him questions every day. And there really is no better spokesperson than the president.
I’m doing TV interviews. I am doing many, many print interviews. I am out there to defend and talk about all of the accomplishments of this president. And I will continue to do that. It seems to be working right now.
EARHARDT: Stephanie, the energy secretary, Rick Perry, told the president he plans to resign. Last night at the rally the president was complimenting him. So it seems – it appears that they still have an amicable relationship. What’s going on there? Why did he decide to step down? And what happens next?
GRISHAM: Absolutely. So as the president said, he’s known about this for months. This was the plan for Secretary Perry all along, that it was time. He’s been with us from the beginning. And there’s going to be some next steps for him. I’m not going to get ahead of him, but he’s going to go on to great things and we wish him really, really well.
KILMEADE: Right. So in other words –
(CROSSTALK)
DOOCY: So did Ukraine have anything to do with his departure?
GRISHAM: Absolutely nothing. No, this was in the works for quite a while. As I said, the president’s known about it. Nothing like that. We wish him well.
KILMEADE: Right. And he says that – the president said they already have somebody for the position already. Could you tell us who it is?
GRISHAM: No, I cannot get in front of that. No way.
KILMEADE: All right, do you want to tell Steve and then Steve could tell me later?
DOOCY: Good idea.
GRISHAM: Sure, I’ll do that after we’re done here.
KILMEADE: Oh, after we’re done. OK.
DOOCY: But the energy secretary has to have a lot of energy, right? We know that part.
GRISHAM: Yes.
DOOCY: All right.
GRISHAM: Like everybody in this administration.
DOOCY: We could figure that out.
KILMEADE: All right.
DOOCY: Stephanie Grisham, thank you very much for joining us from the bureau today.
GRISHAM: Thank you guys for having me.
EARHARDT: Thanks, Stephanie.