Former Chief Of Staff Stephanie Grisham Tells Us Which Claim From Melania Trump's Book Made Her LOL

As the pub date for Melania Trump's memoir draws closer, the juicier portions are starting to leak. Thanks to advance excerpts by the press and Melania's own promo ads, we know Melania and Donald Trump have a huge divide in opinions on abortion (she's totally pro-choice; he thinks states should set their own laws). 

Now, The Guardian has released her take on the infamous "I Really Don't Care, Do U?" jacket, in which Melania points fingers at Stephanie Grisham, her former communications director and chief of staff. The former first lady claims she chose the jacket as a message to the media: "I decided to let them know that their criticism would never stop me from doing what I feel is right." Naturally, news outlets quickly bombarded Grisham with questions about the coat. Melania claims she wanted Grisham to give an honest explanation of the message, "[but] she told me I couldn't say that," the book says. 'Why not? It is the truth.' I disagreed with her insistence that I couldn't say that." 

To get her side of the incident, The List spoke exclusively to Grisham, who resigned from her post following the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol and is now an outspoken critic of the Trumps. Grisham shot down the claim that she ignored her former boss's spin request. "Melania is silenced by no one, so that part of her story made me laugh out loud," Grisham said. "She was quite overbearing and controlling when it came to communications — I was never allowed to respond to a reporter without her approval first."

Once an admirer of Donald and Melania Trump, Stephanie Grisham became disillusioned by their actions during her time at the White House. Among those actions was their response to the kerfuffle over Melania's controversial message jacket. In her book "I'll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House," Grisham claims Melania told her to downplay the whole thing, so she told reporters (via CNN), "It's a jacket. There is no hidden message." Donald wasn't happy; Grisham claims he went into a fury and insisted on delivering a statement himself about the jacket being a slap at "The Fake News Media." Melania soon followed suit. 

The memoir "Melania" gives a very different account. The former FLOTUS claims she wanted to issue the slap-to-the-media statement in the first place, but that Grisham refused. "Ignoring my comments, she told a CNN reporter she was friendly with that it was simply a jacket, a fashion choice with no underlying message," she writes. That claim left Grisham shaking her head. She told The List exclusively, "I don't know, I suppose she thinks it made her sound tough on the media." Grisham also denies her former boss's suggestion that she had an existing friendship with the CNN reporter. "I was actually taken aback by how completely false the whole story was ... including the reporter I first said 'It's just a jacket' to." 

This likely won't be the last time Grisham and the Trumps present different views of events, particularly as the November elections draw closer. Grisham has thrown her support behind Vice President Kamala Harris; as a guest speaker at the Democratic National Convention. Grisham revealed Donald Trump's nasty slang for his fans when the cameras are off. (Will the "basement dwellers" still buy Melania's book after all this?)