Trump White House Press Secretary Tells Acosta She Regrets ‘Cozy,’ ‘Unethical’ Relationship With Fox News: ‘We Did Work Hand in Hand’
Stephanie Grisham, who served as communications director and as press secretary under Donald Trump, described a “cozy” relationship between Fox News and the Trump White House to CNN’s Jim Acosta on Saturday — and apologized for it.
Acosta spoke with Grisham and Vanity Fair correspondent Molly Jong-Fast on CNN Newsroom about the GOP’s 2024 hopefuls, and brought up the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News as the segment was wrapping up.
Acosta asked Grisham about her perspective on that from the White House side during the Trump years, bringing up his own observations that the network and the administration often had the same “talking points,” and see hosts like Laura Ingraham visiting the White House.
“It almost seemed as though there was a pretty cozy relationship between the White House and Fox, is that how you remember, and what do you recall from that experience?” Acosta asked.
Grisham confirmed that it was a “very cozy relationship,” and added that she would get calls from personalities such as Jeanine Pirro or Sean Hannity, who would call Trump directly if she didn’t get back to them “right away.”
“And then I would get a talking to for not speaking with them,” said Grisham. “I remember specifically working on a town hall that the president, the former president, did with Fox, and me having to talk directly with [Fox News CEO] Suzanne Scott about making sure that it was full in there.”
“We did work hand in hand with them,” Grisham said. “And that came at the president’s direction. If he didn’t like something, we were to immediately, you know, call Fox and have them fix it or try to make a new story out of it, etc.”
“Incredible,” said Acosta. “I mean, that’s, that is a lot of what we observed on the outside in the press. You know, you would see Hannity at a Trump rally and that kind of thing. But just just what you’re saying right now, Stephanie, I think, is some insights that we haven’t really heard before about this cozy relationship that was going on between Fox and the Trump White House.”
Before Acosta was able to wrap the segment, Grisham added one more thing.
“I was going to say, obviously 2020 is always, hindsight’s always 2020. Looking back, I — that was completely unethical, frankly, as a as a comms person. But, so I do apologize for that. But that is how it worked,” she said.
