Sarah Sanders' replacement spends her first two weeks also hiding from the press

Newly installed White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham is keeping up her predecessor’s strategy of hiding from the press.

Tuesday marked Grisham’s fifteenth day on the job — she began on July 1 — and in that time, she has failed to hold a White House press briefing.

It has now been 127 days since the last briefing, held on March 11 by Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Sanders effectively ended the briefings, cutting the press off from holding the White House accountable.

Grisham’s continuation of the duck-and-cover strategy means that the Trump administration has avoided questions on issues like Trump’s recent racist outburst and the fallout, the arrest of his close friend and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, raising the debt ceiling, migrant deaths, the unsanitary conditions migrants are being held in, and a whole host of pressing topics.

Trump’s press strategy consists of two major elements. When the press reports on stories with facts exposing his corruption and incompetence, he blasts them as fake news.

Meanwhile, his press secretaries and their associated communications team removes opportunities for the press to ask about policies and instead give interviews to friendly propaganda outlets like Fox News.

Sanders transformed the position of White House press secretary into a job in which the person who holds the position can always skip briefings, something her predecessors in both Democratic and Republican administrations did not do.

Grisham continues the strategy, defending Trump by hiding from the truth and uncomfortable questions.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.