Politico Playbook obtained a copy of Melania Trump’s Chief of Staff/White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham’s forthcoming conscience/reputation cleanser book, reporting: “At 1:25 p.m. on Jan. 6, soon after rioters had broken through barricades outside of the Capitol, Melania Trump received a text message from her then-chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham. ‘Do you want to tweet that peaceful protests are the right of every American, but there is no place for lawlessness and violence?’ Grisham asked the first lady. A minute later, Melania replied with a one-word answer: ‘No.’ At that moment, she was at the White House preparing for a photo shoot of a rug she had selected, according to exclusive excerpts of Grisham’s forthcoming book.”

“Grisham, a years-long Trump loyalist who resigned within hours of that text exchange, also writes that she asked Melania a couple times whether she should reach out to Jill Biden during the transition to set up the traditional inauguration tea. But instead of setting up the meeting, Melania told her that they should ‘see what the West Wing does.’ The reason, according to Grisham: Melania, like her husband, believed the election was illegitimate. Grisham joined the Trump campaign in 2015 and, despite her misgivings, remained with the White House until close to the end. She writes that Melania’s response to her text on Jan. 6 ‘broke’ her since she had long defended the first lady against accusations that she was a Marie Antoinette-type dilettante.”

“Now, Grisham writes, she sees Melania like ‘the doomed French queen. Dismissive. Defeated. Detached.’ Though it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that Melania stood by her husband on important questions like the election, Grisham writes in the book that she was ‘shocked’ to learn that Melania seemed to share Donald Trump’s view that the election was rigged. Melania told Grisham that ‘something bad happened’ and that the election results weren’t legitimate. She didn’t listen to Grisham when she tried to explain to her that there are small irregularities in all elections but there was no grand conspiracy to unfairly remove Trump from office, according to the book.”