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- Melania Trump refused to meet with Steve Scalise at the White House after he was shot.
- Stephanie Grisham wrote that Trump refused the meeting because she'd already visited him at the hospital.
- "No, I already said hello," the first lady reportedly said.
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Former First Lady Melania Trump refused to meet with Republican Rep. Steve Scalise at the White House after he was shot in 2017 at a congressional baseball practice because she'd already visited him once in the hospital, according to a new book, an early copy of which was obtained by Insider.
Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who also served as Melania Trump's chief of staff, wrote that Scalise and his family went to the White House for an unscheduled visit shortly after Scalise had recovered from the shooting.
Grisham wrote that the first lady's staff asked her if she wanted to visit the Scalises, who were gathered in the Blue Room, and that she declined.
"Her response was, 'No, I already said hello,'" Grisham wrote. The first lady was referring to when she and then-President Donald Trump visited Scalise at the hospital when he was recovering from the shooting. According to Grisham's book, Melania Trump's response became a running joke in the East Wing.
"Whenever the first lady said no to something, we would say to each other, 'Well, she already said hello!'" Grisham wrote.
The former press secretary's book, "I'll Take Your Questions Now," has made waves in recent weeks and is set to be released on Tuesday.
Grisham served as Melania Trump's chief of staff before going on to become the third Trump White House press secretary, following Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She served in the role from July 2019 to April 2020 and drew sharp criticism for not holding a single press briefing in that time.
The former president assailed Grisham's book as "bad and untrue" and claimed she "didn't have what it takes" to work in his administration.
"Stephanie didn't have what it takes and that was obvious from the beginning," Trump said in his statement through a spokesperson. "She became very angry and bitter after her break up and as time went on she was seldom relied upon, or even thought about. She had big problems and we felt that she should work out those problems for herself. Now, like everyone else, she gets paid by a radical left-leaning publisher to say bad and untrue things."