White House press secretary claims departing Obama aides left nasty notes

Image: President Trump Departs White House For Georgia
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham listens to President Donald Trump speak to reporters on Nov. 8, 2019. Copyright Chip Somodevilla Getty Images file
Copyright Chip Somodevilla Getty Images file
By Jane C. Timm and Sally Bronston with NBC News Politics
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The former president's staffers quickly denied Trump adviser Stephanie Grisham's accusation.

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White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham claimed on Tuesday that departing former aides to President Barack Obama left notes saying "you will fail" and "you aren't going to make it" for the incoming staff of Donald Trump.

Former Obama aides to quickly denied Grisham's claim, reacting to a tweet from a CNN reporter that Grisham had said during an earlier radio interview, "Every office was filled with Obama books and we had notes left behind that said 'you will fail,' 'you aren't going to make it.'"

"This is another bald faced lie," Obama's former National Security Adviser Susan Rice wrote on Twitter.

"This is an outrageous lie," former senior director of the National Security Council Jon Wolfsthal tweeted. "I know. I handed over the nuclear office at the (National Security Council). Shameless and disgusting."

Former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau countered that his notes would have been more interesting.

Grisham clarified to NBC News that she didn't mean to suggest that the notes weren't left in every White House office, only in a press area.

"I'm not sure where her was, and I certainly wasn't implying every office had that issue," Grisham wrote, referring to Rice's office. "In fact, I had a lovely note left for me in the East Wing, and I tracked the woman down and thanked her. I was talking specifically about our experience in the lower press office — nowhere else. I don't know why everyone is so sensitive!"

NBC News has not heard the radio interview.

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