Donald Trump’s ex-director of strategic communications has revealed that she saw “a number of problematic behavior and comments” by the former president during his tenure at the White House, largely towards young female staffers. She said she went so far as to report it—but that nothing was ever apparently done about it.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, who is now a co-host of The View but was at the time among the dozen most senior staff in the West Wing, is sharing her experience in the Trump administration in the hopes that it will deter other women from working for the real estate mogul and reality TV star.
“Listen, the man’s the former commander-in-chief, he’s currently far and away the Republican frontrunner for president, and I think the American public needs to know who Donald Trump is,” Griffin says.
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“I saw behavior and engagement with very young junior female staffers from the former president that made me uncomfortable,” she adds, alleging Trump’s behavior “was an open secret, open discussion in the West Wing.”
“The way I was brought up, the way that I’ve behaved professionally is it is my duty to report that. So I took it to my direct report, which was the then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows,” she added. “He seemed very aware of the issue and said he was going to handle it.”
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Griffin says to her knowledge “nothing was ever done” but that “I can’t say that definitively.”
“It’s a pattern. It was visible. It didn’t take a genius to see it. It was reported, I don’t know if it was handled, but this is a man who does not respect women,” she continued. “It’s a man who objectified women.”
“We’ve heard it in his own words countless times. And I thought it was important to state it yet again after the E. Jean Carroll decision, because he’s now been found liable by a jury of his peers for predatory behavior. And if I could help protect any woman who might think about working around him, think about being around him, I just wanted to share that.”
Plus! The Daily Beast reporter’s Kelly Weill joins the podcast to discuss the Allen Outlet Mall shooting in Texas—and a neo-Nazi diary the gunman kept on a Russian social media site.
“If you read this guy’s writing…[he is] very alone, does not seem happy at all,” Weill said.
Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.
