Stephanie Grisham book - live: Trump wanted to boot media from White House and ogled ‘highly attractive’ aide

Donald Trump refused to go under anaesthesia when he had a colonoscopy because he did not want to hand power over to Mike Pence, a new book claims.

Former press secretary Stephanie Grisham says that the president did not want anyone to know about the medical procedure, which she does not specifically name, because he did not want to be “the butt of a joke” for late-night comedians.

She writes that it was the same procedure that George W Bush had during his time in the White House when temporarily signed over power to vice president Dick Cheney as he underwent a 2007 colonoscopy.

But she says that Mr Trump, who took an unexplained 2019 trip to Walter Reed medical centre, did not want to do the same with his own vice president.

Graeme Massie reports.

Donald Trump has been accused of downplaying allegations of rape, including those against him, by a former White House press secretary who described his remarks on the issue as unnerving.

The former US president, as revealed by Stephanie Grisham in her book I’ll Take Your Questions Now, allegedly told Ms Grisham that amid allegations of rape, “you just deny it”.

“That’s what you do in every situation. Right, Stephanie? You just deny it,” Ms Grisham, who did not hold a press briefing while White House press secretary, was reportedly told.

Gino Spocchia has the full report.

Donald Trump lost his fight to enforce a nondisclosure agreement with former Apprentice star Omarosa Manigault Newman over her White House tell-all book.

An arbitrator agreed with Mr Trump’s one-time adviser that an NDA she signed during the 2016 presidential campaign was “invalid under New York contract law.”

T Andrew Brown wrote in his decision that the terms of the agreement “pertaining to confidential information and non-disparagement are vague and unenforceable.”

Graeme Massie has the full report.

Earlier excerpts from Stephanie Grisham’s book in The New York Times and The Washington Post claimed Trump became “obsessed” with a “highly attractive” young, female press aide.

Grisham claims Trump asked to see the staffer be brought to his cabin on Air Force Ons so he could “look at her ass”.

On another occasion, he reportedly insisted she be “put on TV. Keep her happy, promote her”.

A new report in the Daily Mail quoting “a source who has seen the book” says Grisham came close to telling the first lady about the ex-president’s behaviour.

“I thought that if she would say one little word to him about it, she could make it stop. But I could never bring myself to say anything,” she wrote.

But, she adds, she was too “chicke nsh*t” or thought it wasn’t her “place or business”.

Donald Trump and Boris Johnson spent a meeting chatting about almost anything but politics, according to a former aide to the ex-president.

The Washington Post has obtained a copy of I’ll Take Your Questions Now, an upcoming tell-all book from Stephanie Grisham, Mr Trump’s third press secretary. One of the reporters who wrote the Post’s story, Josh Dawsey, says the report leaves out some of the more interesting conversations Ms Grisham reveals.

The Independent’s Nathan Place has more:

A new book from a veteran of the Trump administration has shed an unflattering new light on the mentality of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, whom the author claims viewed themselves as akin to royalty.

According to former press secretary Stephanie Grisham, whose Trump-era memoir I’ll Take Your Questions Now is soon to be published, the two were so convinced of their own significance that they tried to barge into a meeting with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.

In the book, obtained by the Washington Post, the author describes how, during a visit by Donald Trump to the UK, the two tried to muscle in on the president and first lady’s meeting with the monarch – a move that would have been a breach of protocol.

The Independent’s Andrew Naughtie has more:

Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham writes in her new book that the former president had a special aide play him show tunes to pull him back from his “terrifying” rage.

Ms Grisham writes in I’ll Take Your Questions Now that Donald Trump often scolded her and made impossible requests.

“When I began to see how his temper wasn’t just for shock value or the cameras, I began to regret my decision to go to the West Wing,” Ms Grisham writes in her new book that was obtained by The New York Times. Ms Grisham also served in the East Wing of the White House as press secretary and chief of staff to then-first lady Melania Trump.

The Independent’s Gustaf Kilander has more:

Lying and deceit was part of the culture of the White House during Donald Trump’s presidency, his former press secretary Stephanie Grisham has claimed in the new book.

Apart from shocking revelations about the former president’s personal life and temperament in the new tell-all book, Ms Grisham has also exposed the inner workings of the White House staff and said a culture of “casual dishonesty” was forged.

“Casual dishonesty filtered through the White House as if it were in the air conditioning system,” Ms Grisham writes in “I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House,” according to The Washington Post, which obtained an early copy of the book.

The book, to be published on Tuesday of next week, purports to reveal the rifts in the Trump family, the former president’s behaviour with his staff including sexist comments and his general poor temper.

Donald Trump’s distinctive hair had its own cutting ritual involving a “huge pair of scissors,” his former press secretary Stephanie Grisham has claimed in her new book.

Ms Grisham described the apparatus used to cut the presidential hair as a “huge pair of scissors that could probably cut a ribbon at an opening of one of his properties”.

Stuti Mishra reports

The president’s loathing for the press was so intense that he wanted to see them banned from the White House altogether – drawing inspiration from a visit to North Korea, according to Grisham’s book.

As reported by the New York Times, Ms Grisham claims that after Mr Trump’s North Korea visit, she was tasked with moving the press as far away from the president’s orbit as possible. “I researched different places we could put them other than the press briefing room,” she writes. “Each time the president asked me about my progress on the matter, I let him know I was still working on options.”

The Independent’s Andrew Naughtie has more: