0:03

Yeah.

0:03

I mean you think about these barrels here. Each one

0:05

of those barrels, you know that's a there's

0:08

a thousand bottles of whiskey right there.

0:10

So in those four or five barrels over there.

0:13

You've got this beautiful distillery. I'm looking

0:15

at a sort of tractor, like, Oh, this.

0:17

Tractor is awesome.

0:18

We just got this about six months. Cool toys

0:21

you got, We got tractors, trucks, liquor

0:23

that you make.

0:24

Yeh.

0:24

Does this help take your mind

0:27

off?

0:27

Oh? Yeah, this is crazy? Yeah, because

0:30

you know if if if there's an

0:32

actual QAnon apocalypse, I

0:34

have a lot of liquid gold that I can hear this as

0:36

barter.

0:39

No, it's.

0:44

As you can hear. Denver Rickleman

0:46

makes whiskey. He's got a craft

0:48

distillery in Afton, Virginia,

0:51

a small rural community about

0:53

a three hour drive from where I live in

0:55

Washington, d C. At one

0:57

time in my life, I'd have said I was

0:59

a fan of what Denver produces. Now

1:02

that I'm one year sober, not so much.

1:05

But I'm still a fan of his. Denver

1:08

is a former representative for Virginia's

1:11

fifth congressional district. He served

1:13

one term, then lost his reelection.

1:16

I don't know if there's anybody inside DC who likes

1:18

me right now. Democrats are Republicans,

1:21

But out here everybody loves me. They

1:24

love me because they're like, you don't give a shit, like

1:26

fucking Denver Man.

1:28

He don't give a shit, have a

1:30

bourbon.

1:32

Denver used to be more popular in DC,

1:35

at least in the Republican Party. There

1:37

was a time when he was a rising star in the

1:39

House of Representatives, but that faded

1:42

the moment he started talking about

1:44

QAnon. Now there's

1:46

lots of people who talk about q Andon, even

1:48

in Congress, a disturbing number.

1:51

Actually, what got Denver canceled

1:53

by the Freedom Caucus and other Republicans

1:56

was that he started talking about

1:58

the dangers of that conspiracy

2:00

movement and its ties

2:02

to leaders on the far right, all

2:05

the way to President Trump. I

2:09

caught up with another person who fled town

2:11

after the Trump administration, Stephanie

2:13

Grisham, who was also once

2:15

a popular figure in Republican Washington.

2:18

She was the White House Communications director,

2:21

defending the President by attacking

2:23

his enemies, including me. At

2:25

one point, Stephanie got

2:27

further away from Washington than Denver did.

2:30

She now lives a twenty hour drive from

2:32

the nation's capital and a little one

2:34

stoplight town in the middle of Kansas,

2:37

appropriately called Plainville.

2:40

It's pretty far, but it's worth the trip.

2:43

And we had lunch at a place called Burgers

2:45

and Beer where we reminisced

2:48

about our good times together.

2:52

Kiley's always like he's a carrier.

2:54

He should put his name to this book of lies.

2:58

You can't make that stuff up. Flyles

3:00

Taylor is a total treasonous

3:02

cowardy.

3:03

There's so great to listen

3:06

to that on a Twitter. This

3:09

awesome.

3:11

Stephanie was one of the members of the White House

3:13

staff to resign in protest after

3:15

the insurrection on January sixth. Since

3:18

then, she's been warning the country about

3:20

the dangers she sees if another

3:22

Trump like leader retakes the White House.

3:25

And so we have more in common now

3:27

and we've gotten to be friends. People

3:30

like Stephanie Grisham and Denver Riggleman

3:33

aren't your traditional whistleblowers. Many

3:35

even say they were complicit in

3:37

what happened in the Trump years, But

3:39

ever since breaking ranks with Trump, they've

3:42

put themselves on the front lines of a fight

3:45

against conspiracy movements consuming

3:47

the most radical wing of the Republican

3:50

Party. This outspokenness

3:52

didn't just get them pushed out of Washington like

3:55

many others. They got driven further

3:57

away into

4:00

the wilderness.

4:07

I'm Miles Taylor, and this is

4:09

the whistleblowers on

4:11

this show. We're going deep into the heart of power

4:14

to meet people who spoke out about wrongdoing

4:16

from inside the Trump administration. In

4:19

this final episode, we are talking to two

4:21

dissenters from the heart of the Republican

4:24

Party, stalwart conservatives

4:26

who really believed in making America

4:28

great again, but who paid a price

4:31

for saying that its leaders weren't

4:33

so great. Episode

4:36

eight, the call is coming

4:38

from inside the White House. For

4:51

a brief moment in time, Republicans

4:54

loved Virginian distillery owner

4:57

and Air Force veteran Denver Riggleman. He

5:00

was more or less drafted to run for Congress

5:02

in twenty eighteen by the Freedom Caucus,

5:04

the far right side of the party. President

5:07

Trump and his allies were big supporters.

5:10

In that moment. Republicans held control

5:13

of the White House, the Senate, and

5:15

the US House. It was a good

5:17

time to be an aspiring conservative.

5:20

I got a call saying, you know, I was Denver Your

5:22

senior consultant at the Pentagon. Your background

5:24

is perfect, you probably don't have a chance

5:26

to win. What would you at least get in for a committee

5:29

vote.

5:29

Denver's background is kind of perfect

5:32

on paper. He served in the Air

5:34

Force for fifteen years, so he's

5:36

pro military. He's a fan

5:38

of expanding gun rights. His

5:40

distillery business makes him against

5:42

red tape regulation, and he's

5:44

tough on a legal immigration. So

5:48

Denver gets the endorsement from President

5:50

Trump and he wins. At

5:52

first, all goes according to plan.

5:55

I was a good fundraiser, did really

5:57

well, raised a lot of money, and.

5:59

I know, well, that's how it works. God, Miles,

6:01

I know, I get it. I knew how to win.

6:03

I knew I had to pay off my committee members, make

6:05

sure Trump was happy, you know, go

6:07

around and make sure I glad hand with the leadership.

6:09

I was a balance between leadership and the Freedom

6:12

Caucus and all these other caucuses.

6:13

And be that guy.

6:15

Take some for the team, Allow me

6:17

to vote independently every now and then.

6:20

That whole voting independently every

6:22

now and then, Denver starts

6:24

to realize, that's not a thing I.

6:26

Found that had nothing to do with policy in my votes it

6:28

was complete loyalty to the president. I

6:30

remember an individual I really

6:33

like coming to me and said, you have pissed off the big

6:35

Man too much. You need to throttle back when

6:38

they tell you piss off the big Man. There's

6:40

no way I should be poking the eye of the President of the

6:42

United States because of the all powerful presence

6:44

that he had.

6:45

This starts to change Denver's mind

6:48

about his new friends on Capitol Hill.

6:50

My respect for I would say

6:52

the far right caucus just

6:54

started to plummet because I thought either they had iq

6:57

limitters right, they've been huff and glue,

7:00

or you know, if they really believe this

7:02

stuff, it's awful.

7:04

He really crosses the line when he

7:06

votes to stop a government shutdown.

7:09

And at that point I was told that

7:11

I would have an opponent, and I remember Mark Meadows

7:13

coming up to me and saying, you're going to lose.

7:15

You're done.

7:17

At the time, Congressman Mark Meadows

7:19

was the powerful chair of the House Freedom Caucus.

7:22

End quote. Having an opponent means

7:24

the party is going to find someone to challenge

7:27

Denver in the next Republican primary,

7:29

someone who's a little less of a free thinker,

7:32

more willing to vote the party line,

7:34

and Denver then digs himself into

7:36

a deeper hole.

7:37

Not only ravocations of that vote, but the same sex

7:40

wedding and then voting not to get rid of pre existing

7:42

conditions.

7:43

He officiates a same sex wedding in

7:45

Virginia between two friends, then

7:47

votes in favor of a House bill to

7:49

protect the healthcare of Americans with pre

7:52

existing conditions. Neither

7:54

position is popular with conservatives,

7:57

but Denver believes he's been elected

7:59

by the vote of Virginia's fifth district

8:01

to you know, represent

8:04

them.

8:06

I have a rural district, right sixty five percent rural.

8:09

Seven of the seventeen federally funded community health

8:11

centers are in my district. So you're looking

8:13

at Republicans that are older that

8:15

if I went against previoussistant conditions, they would

8:17

lose their health care. What people don't understand is

8:20

some of the people that are benefiting the most from the ACA

8:22

are poor Republicans.

8:25

And again he takes a beating.

8:27

I got my face ripped off, he.

8:30

Means, both in Congress but also online.

8:33

He's seen attacks about him across social

8:35

media before, but after the gay wedding

8:38

and the Affordable Care Act vote, the

8:40

attacks escalate, and the accusations

8:42

are different too. They're honestly

8:45

kind of bizarre.

8:47

That was being funded by George Soros, I was a pedophile.

8:50

The fact that I'm being called general of the Sodomite

8:53

armies is a little weird. And that's why I

8:55

was first on the scene against qanhon, because I was

8:57

the first to get hit with it.

8:59

At the core of the QAnon movement is a

9:01

group of far right conspiracy theorists

9:03

who believe a deep state, a secret

9:06

cabal of people pulls all

9:08

the strings of political power in Washington,

9:10

and that many of them are sex abusers

9:13

running secret pedophile rings. The

9:16

theory originated on fringe message

9:18

boards in early twenty seventeen, but

9:21

quickly spread across mainstream social

9:23

media and began gaining a foothold

9:25

in the minds of ordinary Americans. Soon,

9:28

its toxic influence began to seep

9:31

into Congress too.

9:32

A new q Andon existed on the periphery.

9:34

I've seen the hats and the pins at

9:36

some of my committee meetings, but I'm like, what the what

9:38

the.

9:38

Hell is that?

9:39

Right?

9:40

This QAnon thing seems to be picking

9:42

up momentum, and there are signs

9:44

that has a violent edge,

9:46

like when one follower of QAnon buys

9:49

into the conspiracy theory that a pizza

9:51

restaurant in DC is actually

9:53

a cover for a child's sex ring

9:55

run by Democrats. He drives

9:58

all the way from North Carolina to

10:00

investigate and fires a rifle

10:02

inside, threatening employees.

10:05

Thankfully, no one is hurt. But

10:08

when Denver starts raising concerns about

10:10

QAnon's influence, his colleagues

10:13

are not all that interested. In fact,

10:15

some of them are caught up in a lot of

10:17

similar theories.

10:18

I would go into committee meetings and they would say

10:20

that the fourteenth Amendment that.

10:22

Was there to destroy white people.

10:24

It got to the point that it was this racist,

10:27

messianic, apocalyptic, overwhelming

10:30

type of title way that I was fighting every step

10:33

of the way.

10:35

Rather than encouraging Denver to vote his conscience,

10:39

GOP congressional leaders expect

10:41

loyalty to Trump, and

10:43

rather than supporting Denver's concerns

10:45

about QAnon's accusations, he

10:48

finds the caucus either indifferent

10:50

or actually supportive of the theories.

10:53

If you believe it, you're nuts.

10:56

If you're pandering to that, you're devious,

10:58

and you're willing to hurt people to

11:01

forge your career. I had personal issues

11:04

and this automatic assumption that

11:06

I was just one of this band

11:08

of individuals that had to really kiss

11:10

ass to move anywhere in the legislative

11:12

body.

11:13

I'm just not going to invest in breath Menson do that.

11:20

True to their word, the party backs

11:22

a challenger for Denver's House seat

11:24

in the twenty twenty primary. That

11:27

challenger Denver has to face is

11:29

Bob Good. He's a staunch

11:31

opponent of same sex marriage who

11:33

attacks Denver for officiating his

11:35

friend's wedding, saying he's quote

11:38

out of step with the party.

11:40

He's also got some interesting ideas

11:42

about the COVID situation.

11:44

This is a phony pandemic. It's

11:47

a serious virus, but it's a

11:49

virus. It's not a pandemic. It's

11:51

great to see your face, you stand up

11:54

against tyranny. Thank you for being here

11:56

today. Thank you for saying no to

11:58

the insanity.

12:00

So Denver starts to feel like getting

12:03

reelected is really important and

12:05

he suddenly faces a very tough

12:07

decision.

12:09

Trump endorses me for my

12:11

reelect. I was

12:13

gonna turn it down. My consultants come around

12:15

me. They're like, listen, you're going against

12:17

a guy who's batshit crazy. You

12:20

got to accept this endorsement because if you don't, there's

12:22

no way you can win, ever, and you're going to allow

12:24

somebody this nuts to win,

12:27

right. I gotta tell you what, Miles,

12:30

I loose Sleep. I accepted it

12:32

with the simple fact that I knew that the guy I was going

12:34

against was awful.

12:41

Denver has his doubts about accepting

12:43

the president's endorsement, and the GOP

12:46

is clearly having doubts about Denver too, but

12:49

he thinks that losing his seat to Bob Good

12:51

would only make things worse, so

12:54

for a time anyway, he tries to toe

12:56

the party line. He begrudgingly

12:58

accepts the endorsement with the hopes

13:00

he'll be re elected.

13:02

I said, with the endorsement, maybe I can

13:04

stop this person from representing the fifth

13:06

district. I think that's the only way I can stop

13:08

this tied away of a shit. And by the way, I've had

13:10

to go back in time, I would refuse the endorsement.

13:12

I made a mistake.

13:14

If Denver's worried about Bob Good and

13:16

the less reality based members of his

13:18

caucus, he's actually stunned

13:20

when in the spring of twenty twenty, the

13:23

President himself starts retweeting QAnon

13:25

content, and then the

13:27

gloves are off.

13:28

When he started retweeting that Biden killed Seal

13:31

Team six is when I really started to get vocal.

13:33

This was the theory that as Vice President,

13:36

Joe Biden ordered the executions

13:38

of the Seal Team six members who led

13:40

the raid against Osama bin Laden. The

13:43

conspiracy claims that the raid was botched

13:46

and Bin Laden was not actually killed,

13:48

so Biden ordered the deaths of the Seals

13:50

involved to cover up the truth. Trump's

13:53

tweet gives the lie extensive

13:56

airtime, with QAnon followers

13:58

retweeting that the president has confirmed

14:01

their intel.

14:02

When I saw that tweet thread, I went to the

14:04

actual YouTube video and there's one point seven

14:06

million viewers watching that.

14:08

I was pissed and I'm.

14:10

Throwing stuff in my office, like

14:12

I hate this.

14:13

I mean, this is wrong. But I started to

14:15

push the envelope a little bit.

14:17

That's when I had the first tweets that QAnon has the same

14:20

number of letters as Moron.

14:21

This does not go over well.

14:23

When I called that out, I will tell you

14:26

that's it. That was it for me.

14:28

Voting against the party on pre existing

14:30

conditions is one thing, and who knows,

14:33

maybe voters in Virginia's fifth district

14:35

were supportive. Officiating

14:37

the same sex marriage not a popular

14:39

move, but speaking out against

14:42

President Trump's favorite online maga

14:44

fanboys, that is a

14:46

bridge too far.

14:47

All I had to do was pledge complete fealty.

14:50

I had to apologize for the gay wedding,

14:53

and that I had to listen to the committees on.

14:55

How to vote on the floor. I refuse to do those

14:57

three things.

14:58

Denver's outspokenness costs

15:00

him. He loses the Republican

15:02

primary to pandemic denier Bob

15:05

Good, who claims it's a victory

15:07

for quote the nation's founding Judeo

15:10

Christian principles.

15:11

I lose sleep over the guy that's now the fit district

15:13

representatives. And I'll tell you, Miles, it is my

15:15

fault. But it was my fault sort of willingly. I

15:18

refuse to play the game in that way.

15:22

By the fall of twenty twenty, with the clock

15:24

running down on his time in Congress, Denver

15:27

will not shut up about the dangers of

15:29

QAnon. He co sponsors

15:31

a US House resolution condemning

15:33

QAnon and rejecting the conspiracy

15:35

theories that it promotes and he speaks

15:38

about it on the floor of the House of Representatives.

15:41

QAnon believers have accused me of running

15:43

a pedophilia ring for Israel. The grotesque

15:45

nature of the tweets and Instagram

15:47

post and the anti Semitic

15:50

tripe should cause concern for everyone.

15:52

I condemn this movement and urge

15:54

all of my fellow members to join me in taking this

15:56

step to exclude them and other extreme

15:59

conspiracy theory from the national discourse.

16:02

He's joined by only one other Republican

16:04

to openly condemn q Andon. Meanwhile,

16:08

Trump continues to retweek q andon theories,

16:11

and when questioned about the movement, he says,

16:14

quote, I've heard these are people

16:16

that love our country.

16:18

Denver goes on Jake Tapper's show on CNN

16:21

and blasts the president only

16:23

weeks before the election.

16:25

That's the kind of things that we cannot do.

16:27

Is about the disintegration of really the trust

16:29

that we have and being able to talk to each

16:31

other sort of in government circles and have this dialogue

16:34

that's not based on the insanity of things

16:36

like QAnon. I

16:40

remember warning one individual and he goes, listen,

16:42

Denver, you're a neurotic intelligence

16:44

officer and You're completely wrong that this could ever go violent.

16:47

When Joe Biden wins in November and

16:49

Trump begins his Stop the Steel campaign,

16:52

Denver sees how the violent rhetoric of

16:54

the online world could easily spill

16:57

out into real life.

16:58

I absolutely stayed, unequivocally

17:01

that there was going to be something violent,

17:03

something kinetic that we couldn't even imagine

17:05

based on the disinformation language troop were saying,

17:07

and I hated to be validated.

17:09

Miles.

17:09

If everybody said, Denver, you were wrong, I would have taken

17:11

being wrong. I was pointing out the

17:13

facts and the data right.

17:15

I'm like, this is evil.

17:17

We've not crossing the line or complete radicalization,

17:20

and a president that's either off his meds or

17:22

who has no conscience at all and no moral

17:25

boundaries right to what he was doing. I

17:27

got a huge collective shrug. That

17:30

was it, or you're pissing off the big

17:32

man.

17:34

I think we know what happens next.

17:41

The first.

17:50

We're coming.

18:02

On January sixth, twenty twenty

18:04

one, protesters, many

18:06

of whom had been radicalized online

18:08

by movements like QAnon, storm

18:11

the Capitol. Five people

18:13

die, and Denver's replacement

18:15

in the House, Congressman Bob Good

18:18

is one of the one hundred and forty seven Republicans

18:21

who vote against certifying the election

18:23

results.

18:24

I think so many of those individuals on January

18:26

sixth actually thought our country was under attack

18:29

and they were doing the right thing. And that's what I think

18:31

people need to realize. And that's just the people

18:33

who are willing to do violence. So if you're looking at everybody

18:35

else that's involved, everybody else, all the way

18:37

down to the local Republican committees

18:40

that are putting out flyers or fundraising off

18:42

the election was stolen.

18:44

I mean it all. It's there.

18:46

It's a chilling culmination of everything

18:49

Denver has witnessed during his time in

18:51

Congress. But January sixth

18:53

also becomes an opportunity for other

18:56

Republicans to break ranks, to

18:58

say enough is enough, even

19:01

the very people working down the hallway

19:03

from Trump, like Stephanie

19:05

Grisham.

19:12

Let's see how long it's

19:14

going to take to get there, Hey,

19:17

Siri directions to Plainville, Kansas.

19:21

Getting directions to Plainville.

19:29

Four and a half hours.

19:32

Stephanie Grisham served in the Trump White House

19:35

for all four years, first

19:37

in the office of First Lady Milania

19:39

Trump and then as one of the president's

19:42

closest aides. It was a

19:44

dream come true for her, but by the

19:46

end it was the kind of dream you wake up

19:48

from in a cold sweat. By

19:51

the time she resigned on January

19:53

sixth, twenty twenty one, she was

19:55

ready to get as far away from Washington, d C.

19:57

As possible.

20:00

Stephanie Grisham, former White

20:02

House Communications Director, picked

20:05

the middle of fucking nowhere

20:07

to move after

20:09

she left the Trump administration. I'm

20:12

using her words.

20:13

By the way, not mine.

20:17

Stephanie was President Trump and the first

20:19

Lady's spinmaster, and an

20:22

unapologetic one. So

20:24

why isn't she doing something today like

20:26

leading comms for Trump's social media

20:29

platform, truth Social, or

20:31

firing off press releases from mar

20:33

A Lago says.

20:35

I'm three minutes away. It

20:39

doesn't feel like I'm three minutes away from anything. I'm

20:41

still in the middle of Cornfield. So

20:46

got a gas station, Tom's

20:49

welding. There

20:52

appears to be one stoplight.

20:57

I decided that finding out an answer to

20:59

that question was worth taking two

21:01

planes and driving four and a half

21:03

hours to ask her myself. I'll

21:07

do like hash browns and one

21:10

egg.

21:10

I only need one egg.

21:12

How would you like to take over

21:14

easy.

21:17

No toast her anything that, okay, I'll

21:20

take a feoff.

21:22

If you had told me this back in twenty nineteen,

21:25

that I'd be sitting at a place called Burger's

21:27

in Beer in Plainville with Stephanie

21:30

and her sister, I would have said

21:32

probably not. That was

21:34

the year I published my book A Warning,

21:37

Still as anonymous. When

21:39

the book came out, it was essentially

21:41

Stephanie's job to go after anyone

21:43

who was critical of the president, and

21:46

I thought she did it with a disturbing

21:48

amount of zeal.

21:52

Whoever wrote the anonymous book is a coward

21:54

all across government, the President has been saying,

21:56

and I think it's been proven time and again there

21:58

are obstructionists all across this

22:01

government who are working against the president.

22:04

That clip from Fox and Friends was pretty

22:06

typical. Stephanie certainly sounds

22:08

like a true believer, and she was. She

22:11

had been with President Trump since the start

22:13

of the campaign. When she first saw

22:15

him do his thing on the rally circuit.

22:18

Watching him speak like I was

22:21

mesmerized. I was not mesmerized

22:23

necessarily by him, but the people

22:25

in the audience were just into

22:28

it and the cheers, and

22:30

they really liked him, and I had

22:32

never seen such a crowd. I really hadn't, and

22:34

I had done all these Romney rallies, and

22:37

so at that moment, I was like, I'm in.

22:39

I'm sticking with him. This is fun.

22:42

Stephanie was living in Arizona and

22:44

had worked on Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

22:47

She was then spokesperson for Arizona's

22:49

Attorney General Tom Horne and

22:51

the Republican Caucus in the state House. She

22:54

joins Trump's team as a presaide.

22:57

It's like nothing she's ever seen before.

23:01

We were doing like five events a day

23:03

or something, and this one day we were running

23:05

so behind, and our

23:07

last event of the day was in a fucking like

23:09

a barn somewhere in

23:12

like Appalachia, and we were

23:14

literally three hours late.

23:16

So by the time we got to this barn, I

23:19

think it was like one in the morning, and we walked

23:21

in and the place was

23:23

packed. People were on the

23:25

floor sleeping, And I walked

23:27

in and I was like, my god, like, this

23:30

is a movement. This is not normal.

23:33

And that's when I knew. I was like, he's going

23:35

to win.

23:36

Washington insiders, the media, they

23:38

didn't see it until election night

23:41

and the press.

23:41

Was like what what?

23:44

And the mood started to take. It

23:46

just took this turn. You could feel it

23:48

in the room. There was just this like, oh

23:51

my gosh, did we just do

23:53

this?

23:56

The Trump campaign team entering the White House

23:59

can't help but feel defiant, ready

24:01

to prove wrong all the critics who

24:03

ever doubted them.

24:04

I think our mindset was like, you

24:07

all told us we were terrible, y'all,

24:10

you know, made fun of us, And now here

24:12

we are and fuck y'all.

24:15

Right away, Stephanie is folded into

24:17

the transition team and it's a heady

24:19

time, Like I said, a

24:21

dream come true.

24:22

One day, Sean Spicer

24:25

called he was going to be Press secretary, and he

24:27

asked if I would be a deputy press secretary,

24:30

which had always been like a dream of mine. I

24:32

even kept a picture of the White House in my office all the

24:34

time, everywhere I worked to remind myself

24:36

of my goal. So when he offered me

24:38

deputy press secretary, I was like, yes,

24:41

Oh my gosh. I watched West Wing. I was

24:43

convinced I'd be ce J. Craig.

24:46

Lots of girls probably wanted to be CJ.

24:48

Craig. The White House Press secretary

24:51

played by the incomparable Alison Janny

24:53

on NBC's The West Wing. I

24:55

mean, nobody could tell it like it is

24:58

like her.

24:59

Trouble with your spen is that we're not going to get anywhere

25:01

putting on a calm face.

25:02

We need to pick a fight. Why because

25:04

in politics, if you're not on offense, you're on defense.

25:07

I'd be like fifty and funny at the podium.

25:10

You know, I've had a goldfish and data

25:12

reporter secretly, like I knew i'd be.

25:14

Heart turns

25:17

out being deputy Press secretary

25:19

under Sean Spicer is not actually

25:21

like being CJ. Craig at all. In

25:24

the first press briefing, Spicer at

25:26

the behest of the new president, lies

25:28

about the crowd size at the inauguration and

25:31

is humiliated all over cable news

25:34

and Spicy, as he was called on SNL,

25:37

is too focused on not making Trump angry

25:39

to develop much of a working relationship

25:41

with his deputy.

25:42

I was not in any meetings. He literally

25:45

had me taking the press in and out of the oval,

25:47

in and out of the cabinet room. Trump really

25:49

liked me always. He'd see

25:52

me come in, he'd call me over, he'd

25:54

ask me who was being nice, you know, he'd

25:56

ask me how things are playing. I

25:59

was like, oh my god, goosh, here I am

26:01

with this awesome job title, but I'm

26:04

not doing anything.

26:06

But nine months in she gets a different opportunity.

26:09

She's tapped by the East Wing of the White

26:11

House to be chief of Staff

26:13

and Press Secretary for First Lady

26:15

Milania Trump.

26:16

It was like nirvana. We came in at like

26:19

eight thirty nine, whereas before I'd

26:21

be in the West Wing at seven am, roll

26:24

out of there at four thirty. Everyone

26:26

was beautiful and dressed so beautiful.

26:29

Throughout the next two years working for the First

26:31

Lady, Stephanie is shielded from

26:34

most of the insanity. The travel

26:36

band, Charlottesville family

26:38

separation, the Michael Cohen controversy,

26:41

the list goes on and on. She's

26:43

fully aware of what's happening. But in the

26:45

East Wing, your job is to protect the First

26:47

Lady, to put out statements about

26:49

her initiatives and make her look good.

26:52

When you're working. Then in the East Wing, people

26:54

including the press, are like more forgiving

26:56

of you. Well you work for Milania,

26:59

Well, okay. She puts

27:01

out statements kind of against her own

27:03

husband. She is not four kids

27:06

in cages as it was talked about. I

27:08

think that I had gotten in a place

27:10

that again, we were very confident,

27:13

cocky. It was terrible with how much

27:15

power we had because Trump just always

27:17

wanted to keep Malania happy.

27:20

But in June of twenty nineteen, then

27:22

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders

27:24

resigns and Trump decides

27:26

that, in addition to still working with Milania,

27:29

Stephanie should replace Sanders and

27:32

take on the role of White House Communications

27:35

Director, so she's

27:37

back in the belly of the beast. And then

27:39

some I.

27:40

Had such reservations about taking

27:42

the Press secretary job, and my

27:45

gut kept telling me, don't do it, don't

27:47

do it. I just knew it would

27:49

be bad, but I also

27:51

was like, this is my dream. I will be able

27:53

to say I reached my goal my whole

27:56

life, this is what I wanted to do. You

27:58

know, every other politician

28:00

now hate you because you work for Trump,

28:03

so you're never going to probably be at the White House again.

28:06

I would still work for missus Trump was because

28:08

I was so against working just for

28:10

him, and I thought that she would keep

28:12

me protected and that I would be able to call

28:14

her when he wanted to do real crazy stuff.

28:17

Magical thinking was just the norm

28:20

in this White House.

28:23

One word comes to mind, it's just pathetic. And

28:25

I would just remind Mitt Romney that he

28:27

is not president. It's hard for me to actually

28:29

hear the word Republican and Mitt Romney in the same

28:32

sentence.

28:33

That's Stephanie on Fox Business bashing

28:35

her former boss Mitt Romney for

28:38

not falling in line during Trump's first

28:40

impeachment. This is her job

28:42

now, and here she is on Fox

28:44

and Friends running down the White House

28:46

press pool while defending her decision

28:48

not to hold press briefings.

28:50

He's his own best spokesperson, It's

28:52

true. And also he's the most accessible president

28:55

in history. And to be honest, the briefings had become

28:57

a lot of theater, and I think that a lot

28:59

of or were doing it.

29:01

To get famous.

29:03

I mean, yeah, they're writing books now. I mean

29:05

they're all getting famous off of this presidency.

29:08

When my former boss, General John Kelly

29:10

left the administration and made the mistake

29:13

of saying something critical about the president, he

29:15

got the Stephanie treatment too. She

29:17

told CNN quote, I worked

29:20

with John Kelly, and he was totally

29:22

unequipped to handle the genius

29:24

of our great president unquote.

29:27

Yeah, it sounds like something out of Pyongyang,

29:30

North Korea, not Washington. Stephanie

29:33

transforms herself into a voracious

29:36

defender of President Trump. She spins

29:38

for him, blocks the media from talking to

29:40

him, and attacks anyone who questions

29:43

his agenda. But behind closed

29:45

doors, she's starting to find that

29:47

the job is hell.

29:49

I immediately started to regret it right

29:51

when I got there, because it's

29:55

so stupid, because you knew of all the chaos

29:57

going on. You read the stories of everybody

30:00

you know biting each other in the back and snipe

30:02

in each other. And but then you got in there and you

30:04

saw it. And I had Jared constantly

30:07

overriding me. I had people

30:10

maneuvering, I had Peter Navarro

30:12

bothering me every other day. I'm

30:14

seeing his anger.

30:16

More and more Trump's anger. That

30:18

is because she spends a lot

30:20

of time with him.

30:21

I started taking anti anxiety drugs

30:24

when I went back to the West Wing pretty

30:26

darn quick. So I would wake up,

30:29

I would watch the news, I would be on

30:31

Twitter, and then he would come down,

30:33

and from that moment on, my day was

30:36

done. Like it was like I had to be in the oval

30:38

or in the dining room. I wasn't getting any work done.

30:40

I was just watching TV with him.

30:42

It's all consuming.

30:44

You just have to be there to like make him happy

30:46

and tell him how great he was all day. And

30:48

then the weekends. He would call me every

30:50

weekend, and I remember

30:53

every weekend being so uptight

30:55

waiting for his morning call, and

30:58

the minute the operator call, I

31:00

would be on Twitter and like frantically

31:02

looking at Twitter while I'm waiting to be connected

31:05

so that I could know what was happening.

31:08

The anxiety was though on those weekends,

31:11

which trump are you gonna get? Some

31:13

mornings it was like, hey, darling,

31:16

Hey, how are you? How's

31:18

the plane okay? And

31:20

some days it would be like what the fuck?

31:23

Where the fuck are people?

31:24

Why aren't you on tevinge screaming at

31:26

you?

31:28

This is plenty bad on its own, but

31:30

for Stephanie, it also dredges up old

31:32

feelings.

31:33

Going back to some of my childhood stuff that I don't

31:35

really talk about. But I dealt with a lot of

31:38

abuse from a

31:40

man when I was growing up, and I think that

31:42

that kind of triggered me. I

31:45

had no idea, but I've taken had

31:47

a lot of therapy since the White House.

31:49

Stephanie's experience is different from a lot

31:51

of other people we've talked to for this show. It's

31:54

not the policies Trump has enacted or

31:56

the administration's efforts to skirt the law.

31:59

These are not the things that change her mind. It's

32:02

the man himself. She gets

32:04

to know Donald Trump in a way that

32:07

few people do, and

32:09

she's terrified by what she sees.

32:12

It is a cycle of abuse because

32:16

his anger is so swift

32:18

and so severe and so mean.

32:21

I feel like a snowflake saying that he's

32:23

mean. It's not it's cruel.

32:26

All you do is you want to make that

32:29

version of that monster

32:31

go away. And that's what abuse

32:33

is. Right, It was awful,

32:36

and so my anxiety got

32:39

really bad, really really

32:41

bad.

32:42

But despite all of that, she stays

32:45

in the job, attacking the president's

32:47

enemies and promoting his talking

32:49

points.

32:50

You don't want to admit to the people who told

32:52

you, don't do this, he's bad or whatever.

32:55

That's the other part of it, your pride. You're still

32:57

like, oh, I don't want to tell. So

32:59

that's the part of like, it's fine, it's fine.

33:02

So when does it become not

33:05

fine?

33:05

When it really started to turn, and not for the

33:07

reason you would think. I know, I'm supposed to say COVID

33:10

started to turn because we weren't. We

33:12

fucked it up, which we did. When Meadows

33:14

came in and Mick and his team left, you

33:17

know, things went really downhill

33:19

for me.

33:23

In March of twenty twenty, Mark Meadows

33:26

replaces Mick mulvaney as White

33:28

House Chief of Staff, and Meadows

33:30

has no qualms about placating the president's

33:33

every need and inclination, no

33:35

matter how bad, and he's more

33:37

than willing to throw people under the bus.

33:40

Suddenly, for the first time ever, I

33:43

was getting bad press stories leaked about me.

33:45

I went back to the East Wing. And that's

33:47

actually when I started commuting here to Plainville.

33:50

I was so far removed from

33:52

the election, I really was, and I was already

33:54

like, I'm done at the end of this. I had already

33:57

made that that was my plan. People all think that

33:59

I would still have stayed. Fuck

34:02

no, No, I was done. I knew I would

34:04

never go back. I was a mess. I

34:06

came here and I was a mess.

34:11

When the whole stop the steal was happening, I

34:13

was just like, of course, that's what we're doing. Like at that point,

34:15

I was so jaded. I was only

34:17

loyal to Missus Trump. I was staying for

34:19

her, and that is all I cared about. Everything

34:22

else. I did my best to like either

34:25

drink away or just

34:28

ignore, because at that point

34:30

my mental health was really

34:32

suffering, really bad.

34:34

All of us here today do not want

34:36

to see our election victory stolen

34:38

by a bald and radical left Democrats,

34:41

which is what they're doing, and stolen

34:43

by the fake news media. That's

34:45

what they've done and what they're doing. We

34:48

will never give up. We will never concede.

34:51

It doesn't happen. You don't concede

34:53

when there's theft could go.

34:57

I had a bad feeling just because it was the and

35:01

he was so angry and stuff. But I

35:03

certainly didn't know what was going to happen. And I remember

35:05

I had the TV on and I was listening to him at the

35:07

rally, and I remember being like, dude,

35:10

like, why are you why are

35:12

you needlessly doing this? This is so not healthy

35:15

for the country.

35:25

And then when everything started to happen at

35:27

the Capitol, I sent Missus

35:30

Trump a text and said,

35:33

do you want to put a statement out? Basically

35:35

saying like you have the right to protest,

35:38

but it needs to be peaceful. It was not political

35:40

at all. It was truly just a hey, everybody,

35:42

let's calm down and be peaceful. And she just

35:44

wrote back, No, that's

35:46

it.

35:55

The first lady does what her

35:57

husband does best.

36:00

Now she has said she had no idea what was happening

36:03

and that it's my fault because I didn't brief her

36:05

as her chief of staff, which is just

36:07

bullshit, Like she knew everything that was going

36:09

on all the time. There was always a TV on.

36:12

I think it just all came

36:15

to a crash. To see it so vividly,

36:17

I think it felt like I was watching my own

36:19

self burn down.

36:21

She's one of the leading staffers in the administration

36:24

who resigns That very day I

36:26

resigned.

36:26

I sent her an email like five

36:29

ten minutes later, and I resigned, and I ce

36:31

Seed, a senior advisor of her, so

36:33

that I couldn't take it back. She sent me

36:35

a really nice text that said, you know, I'm

36:37

sorry to get your email. I value your

36:39

friendship. And she

36:42

has never spoken to me again.

36:46

Stephanie moves to Plainville permanently,

36:49

but it's not really over for her.

36:51

I felt so safe

36:53

here that that

36:56

was nice, but I still

36:58

was like riddle with

37:00

anxiety. But then when I decided

37:02

to go forward with the book, I thought it would

37:05

just be more therapy for me than anything like

37:07

write it down. I processed

37:09

a lot of feelings and like I remembered

37:11

a lot of stuff where I was like, well, that was fucked

37:13

up of me, And I realized that I too

37:16

was pretty fucked up a lot of the times. And so that's

37:19

when I decided, you know, I'm not going

37:21

to like just blame everybody else, you

37:23

know, and be a victim. I'm going to also own

37:25

kind of my part in it.

37:28

Stephanie's book I'll Take Your Questions

37:30

Now is one of the first books

37:32

published from a true MAGA insider

37:35

who defected from the movement, and

37:37

she doesn't hold back. She shares

37:39

damaging revelations, but also,

37:41

unlike some others from the administration who

37:43

wrote books in the aftermath, she doesn't

37:46

shy away from her own role. Predictably,

37:49

the MAGA crowd goes after her. Did

37:52

you know before it went live, did

37:54

you have a sense of

37:56

the whole force of

37:58

the MAGA side that's going to cut after me?

38:00

Yeah?

38:01

Because I used to do it to people. One thing

38:03

we were really good at was destroying people

38:05

who went against us, and I

38:07

was part of them, so I knew I was prepared.

38:09

I did it to people myself.

38:16

She also appears before the January

38:18

sixth Committee. On MSNBC,

38:21

host Nicole Wallace recounts Stephanie's

38:23

testimony about Trump's behavior

38:25

during the insurrection.

38:27

He was sitting in the dining room and

38:29

he was just watching it all unfold.

38:32

Some of his comments were.

38:33

That these people looked very trashy,

38:36

but also look at what fighters they

38:38

were.

38:39

He loved how they were fighting for him.

38:41

The media is kind of skeptical about all of

38:43

this. Joy Behar on the View

38:46

summed it up for a lot of people.

38:48

These people who are now all like recovering

38:51

addicts, recovering

38:53

ADATs in the Trump world

38:55

that come on even on this show, They come on

38:58

this show, they go on on the shows, and they suddenly turning

39:00

on Trump.

39:01

Where were you all.

39:02

That time when he was talking

39:04

about grabbing women. It's just disgraceful.

39:07

We're onto all of them.

39:10

I just feel like I am a person who

39:12

has complete, inside,

39:15

intimate knowledge of this man, his psyche,

39:18

the things that motivate him, I've

39:21

seen it, and I just feel like I have a responsibility

39:24

to educate people about who

39:26

he is. I want people to know

39:29

who he is behind the scenes. So

39:31

I just, yeah, I feel a responsibility, I think

39:34

because it will be so much

39:36

worse if he gets in there again, so

39:38

much worse.

39:41

Power couple Peter Baker and Susan

39:43

Glasser were two of the many journalists

39:45

who were stonewalled by Trump's press

39:48

operation. I asked them

39:50

what they thought about Stephanie's journey.

39:53

There are no heroes in this

39:55

story, and Stephanie

39:57

Grisham is an example. Arguably

39:59

her Her police in White House

40:01

history will be as the White House prosecutor who never

40:04

gave a single press conference. Not

40:06

exactly a badge of honor, a badge

40:08

of glory. And yet there's

40:11

this interesting argument, is it

40:13

ever too late to do the right thing?

40:16

She was there for three and a half

40:18

years, not complaining at least

40:20

publicly about anything, and then at the end breaks

40:23

with him. And yet I think by

40:25

breaking with him and then trying to explore

40:27

it and understand herself

40:30

and how she did this in her book,

40:32

and to then bear witness in effect of what

40:34

she saw, you know, she's a very

40:37

human story. There's something rather remarkable

40:39

about that to try to rethink

40:41

your life, to rethink your choices,

40:43

and to say I did something that I'm not proud

40:46

of anymore, and I'm willing to say it out loud.

40:48

It strikes me that Grisham, who then

40:50

also produced a memoir

40:53

and went public with her concerns,

40:55

including some very very damaging

40:57

stories to both Trump and Milania

41:00

Trump, that she is an

41:02

example that people

41:05

should study of, Like, how is it that those

41:07

who didn't have any particular

41:10

ideological reason to do so,

41:13

you know, didn't even particularly like Donald

41:15

Trump, gets sucked into doing something so

41:17

wrong.

41:21

The dissenter of the Republican Party have in fact

41:23

been consigned to the furthest reaches

41:26

of American politics, if they're even in

41:28

American politics anymore.

41:30

That is the story writ large

41:33

of the Trump presidency is

41:36

a story of his domination, not

41:39

over the country.

41:40

He was never.

41:41

Supported by fifty one percent of Americans

41:43

on any day in his presidency, and

41:45

yet his domination of the

41:47

Republican Party was remarkable.

41:50

In purging dissenters,

41:52

in marginalizing them, in demonizing

41:55

them. He has an innate

41:57

understanding, an instinctual understanding

42:00

that the threat from within was always the potentially

42:03

the biggest one, and so that

42:05

was always the kind of apostasy

42:08

that he needed to punish the most, that of somebody

42:10

like Stephanie Grisham.

42:12

The party has closed ranks around this idea,

42:15

discouraging anyone who dissents from the status

42:18

quo from a political future, and

42:20

they're also making sure to leave the outliers

42:22

to fend for themselves when they come under

42:25

attack. The message is basically,

42:28

you're on your own. When

42:30

I went to see Denver for his interview, he

42:32

was under just such an attack. He

42:35

had just learned he was being sued

42:37

by a far right paramilitary group

42:40

for fifty million dollars. The

42:42

group was incensed after Denver published

42:45

his book The Breach, about

42:47

his work returning to Capitol Hill as

42:49

a staffer on the January sixth Select Committee.

42:52

He was part of the team investigating

42:54

groups responsible for the attack on the

42:56

Capitol.

42:57

Crazy has so much more energy than

42:59

sanity. And that's

43:01

the thing is that saying people somewhere need to find the

43:04

energy, you know, to match that type

43:06

of crazy or that type of zealotry you

43:08

know that's coming from certain.

43:09

Groups such battles

43:11

don't give Denver any appetite

43:13

to return to politics.

43:15

I would rather light myself on fire than

43:18

run for office again. I've

43:20

never seen such depravity. I think

43:22

Congress is a disease right

43:24

now. And

43:26

the fact that the people that are going in there

43:29

are the people that will do anything for power,

43:31

and the talented people, the ones

43:34

you want in public service are looking over there, like do

43:36

I want to swim in that sewer?

43:37

Hell no.

43:39

Stephanie doesn't want any part of the sewer

43:41

either, but the sewer often

43:44

comes to her.

43:45

They're suing me. They still try to shop stories.

43:48

So I definitely had moments of like, should

43:51

I do this? Like all my family's going to see

43:53

all this terrible stuff about me?

43:54

Now?

43:55

Is my family going to be ashamed of me? Or

43:57

you know, my kid's going to get threatened.

44:02

Still, while they may be out of the Washington

44:04

game, both Stephanie and Denver

44:06

see some value, even power

44:09

in talking about their experience on a

44:11

local level, Like when someone

44:13

comes in for a bourbon at Denver's

44:15

distillery.

44:18

The people that come in here, I don't get angry.

44:20

Just in my place. You're on my

44:23

turf, so I can be kind

44:25

and loving and we can have really good

44:27

discussions here, and that one on one

44:29

is how I get people. Me going on

44:31

a CNNMSNBC, Fox, BBC

44:34

doesn't turn anybody. Nobody gives

44:36

a shit. Does me going on

44:38

a show? Change one person?

44:40

Now?

44:41

Now? Not one person?

44:42

And I'm like, God, if I could just get with them

44:44

and have a beer or a bourbon, I

44:46

know I can turn them. There you go.

44:49

So that's strength.

44:51

Or over Bloody Mary's at

44:53

burgers and beer.

44:55

I feel a responsibility. It's and

44:57

that's the thing. It's not fun. I'm not

44:59

trying to be relevant. You

45:02

just get shit on from both sides.

45:04

It's you know, you should have spoken out sooner, you

45:07

should have done this, you should have done that, and

45:08

keep and I

45:10

think that's the hard part. And that's what

45:12

I'm trying to figure out a way to do, is explain

45:15

to people the consequences. I

45:21

feel like my ultimate weapon is

45:23

the truth now and me being authentic

45:26

and being like, yeah, that happened.

45:37

When we started this series, I

45:39

was wrestling with my own issues around

45:42

whistleblowing, namely whether

45:44

I came forward soon enough and whether

45:46

doing it anonymously was actually the right

45:48

choice. I'm not gonna lie. It

45:51

was painful to relive that experience.

45:54

Coming forward cost me a lot, a

45:56

home, a job, close

45:58

relationships, the security of

46:01

my immediate family. I struggled

46:03

with depression and substance

46:05

abuse, something that I really never

46:07

thought would happen, and I definitely didn't

46:09

think I would be talking about publicly. I

46:12

don't say this for sympathy, but because

46:14

what surprised me most about the conversations

46:17

we had making this show was that

46:19

just about every one of the people you've

46:21

heard this season went through something

46:23

similar. They were called liars,

46:26

traders, attention seekers, deep

46:28

state hacks. Their careers

46:31

suffered, their lives have been upended,

46:33

all because they felt they had to say something. When

46:37

I was in college, I took econ one

46:39

O one, and you hear a lot about

46:41

supply and demand. If the

46:44

price of something is too high, there are

46:46

basically two ways to lower it. You

46:48

can decrease the demand or you can

46:50

increase the supply. Now,

46:53

when it comes to people speaking out, we

46:56

need there to be demand, a demand

46:58

for the truth. So if you want

47:00

to lower the price people have to pay for

47:03

stepping up and giving us that truth, we

47:05

have to increase the supply. When

47:08

more people are willing to say something about

47:10

wrongdoing, the price, the

47:12

consequence for them, it has

47:14

to come down. But

47:18

there's something else about the stories we heard

47:20

making this show something I personally

47:22

find pretty inspiring, and

47:24

that's the fact that almost no one we spoke

47:27

to regrets what they did. They

47:29

might have done it another way, but they're pretty

47:31

clear that it needed to be done

47:34

and it had to be them, whatever

47:36

the price, and

47:39

that gives me some much needed

47:41

optimism.

48:03

The Whistleblowers is a production of iHeart

48:05

Podcasts in partnership with Best Case Studios

48:08

and ARC Media. It was hosted by me Miles

48:10

Taylor and written by me Isabel Evans

48:12

and Adam Pinkiss. Isabel Evans is

48:14

also our producer. Associate producers

48:17

are Hannah Leebelwitz Lockhart, and Ashley

48:19

Warren. Darcy Peacle is consulting

48:21

producer. Zach Herman is the VP of

48:23

Development of ARC Media. This

48:25

episode was edited by Daniel Turreck with

48:27

assistants from Max Michael Miller. Original

48:29

music is by James Newberry. Executive

48:32

producers are Me Miles Taylor, Adam Pinkis

48:34

for Best Case Studios and Barrick Goodman for

48:36

ARC Media. Beth Ann Macaluso

48:38

is our executive producer for iHeartMedia, along

48:41

with Ali Perry. Special thanks to Kevin

48:43

Famm, all of our contributors and interviewees,

48:45

and our intern Anna Levitt, and a

48:47

big thanks to the teams at Government Accountability

48:50

Project and Whistleblower Aid, two

48:52

of the best organizations for government and

48:54

private sector whistleblowers seeking legal

48:56

support. Follow and rate the Whistleblowers

48:59

on the podcast site of your choice to

49:01

hear what these whistleblowers and others have

49:04

to say about what they believe will happen under

49:06

a second Trump administration or in the White

49:08

House of AMaGA successor, you can pick up

49:10

my new book, Blowback from Simon and

49:12

Schuster