Trump surrounds himself with ‘vulnerable people,’ former aide says 

Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Monday that former President Trump surrounds himself with “vulnerable people.”

Grisham, who served under the Trump administration, claimed the former president’s aides Carlos De Oliveira and Walt Nauta — who have both been charged in the federal classified documents case — have not turned on Trump because they feel like they “owe” him.

“I think that this is a design that Trump does to people,” she said on CNN’s “Erin Burnett Out Front”. “I think he chooses and selects vulnerable people to surround him, and I’m putting myself in that, in that group by the way.

She noted in De Oliveira’s case, he will be loyal to Trump due to “very basic necessity of survival, explaining that he “worked his way up” when employed by the former president, starting as a valet.

“He really owes Trump, this is what he does,” Grisham continued. “He chooses people who have … work their way up and we feel ingratiated towards him and like we owe him, and then it’s really scary the thought of turning on Trump right now.”

“His lawyer is being paid for right now and he has a job,” she added. “You get out into that world without the Trump cushion, and it’s very scary and it’s not very friendly, I’ve got to tell you. It’s not lucrative and you have to think about, ‘How am I going to support my family? How will I ever pay for these legal bills?’”

De Oliveira was indicted on three criminal charges alongside Trump and Nauta in a superseding indictment in the classified documents case last week. According to the indictment, De Oliveira, 56, was hired as the Mar-a-Lago manager in January 2022.

Grisham worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign before serving as press secretary to then-first lady Melania Trump and later to the former president during his administration. She was serving as chief of staff to Melania Trump during the attacks on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, leading her to resign that same day.