Alyssa Farah

Alyssa Farah Griffin (born June 15, 1989) is an American political strategist and television personality. She was the White House Director of Strategic Communications and Assistant to the President in 2020 during the presidency of Donald Trump. Griffin appears on CNN as a political commentator. She is a co-host of the daytime talk show '' The View'' for its 26th season.

Griffin was press secretary for U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Special Assistant to President Donald Trump from October 2017 to September 2019. In 2019, she was appointed the youngest press secretary of The Pentagon in history. She served as Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and the Press Secretary for the United States Department of Defense from 2019 to 2020.

Since August 2021, Griffin has presented '' The Hill''s online news program '' Rising'' alongside Ryan Grim and Kim Iversen.

Early life

Griffin was born on June 15, 1989, in Los Angeles. Her father, Joseph Farah, is a journalist of Syrian and Lebanese descent who was executive news editor at the ''Los Angeles Herald Examiner'' before moving to Northern California to become editor of ''The Sacramento Union'' in 1990. He later founded the far-right website ''WorldNetDaily''. Her mother Judy ( Smagula) is a Sacramento-based journalist who has written for ''HuffPost'', the Associated Press, and ''Comstock's''. Griffin describes herself as having been "raised in the right-wing media".

In high school she was captain of the girls soccer team and also learned karate, earning a black belt. After graduating from Bella Vista High School in 2007, Griffin earned a bachelor's degree in Journalism and Public Policy from Patrick Henry College.

Career

Prior to 2014, Griffin wrote articles for the far-right website WorldNetDaily, where she served as a "special Washington correspondent for WND." In 2010, Griffin was a media intern for Congressman Tom McClintock and began a one-year position as an associate producer on ''The Laura Ingraham Show''. In the 2012 Presidential election cycle, Griffin was the spokesperson for the College Republican National Committee, traveling the country discussing the youth vote. In 2014, she was named Press Secretary for Congressman Mark Meadows; she was later named as his Communications Director. She went on to work as the Communications Director for the Freedom Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, serving under Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows.

In September 2017, she was appointed Special Assistant to the President and Press Secretary to the Vice President Mike Pence. As Press Secretary to the Vice President, she traveled with Pence on numerous trips, domestic and foreign, and was part of the official U.S. delegations to the Munich Security Conference and ASEAN Summit.

In September 2019, it was announced that Griffin would become Press Secretary for the United States Department of Defense, after the role had been vacant for nearly a year. She was also appointed Director of Media Affairs. In this role, Griffin was the chief spokesperson for the Department and advised Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley on all matters regarding public affairs.

In April 2020, it was reported that Meadows, by then Trump's Chief of Staff, had considered bringing Griffin on as a White House Press Secretary. She joined the White House Office as the White House Director of Strategic Communications on April 7, 2020. In August 2020, ''The Washington Post'' reported that Griffin played an important role in shaping the Trump administration's coronavirus response.

Griffin resigned as White House communications director on December 3, 2020, effective the next day. At the time it was reported she planned to start a consulting firm "focusing on the corporate, political and defense realms" and that she had initially planned to leave before the election according to one person speaking anonymously.

The day before the January 6, 2021, United States Capitol attack, Griffin publicly condemned Trump supporters for harassing Senator Mitt Romney. She denounced the attack, and days later, on January 8, blamed Trump for inciting the insurrection and suggested that he should resign.

In a February 7, 2021, interview on CNN, Griffin questioned the constitutionality of the second impeachment of Donald Trump and stated she believed censuring would be more appropriate. When asked if she would support censure after the impeachment if it fails, she said it was "an open question" before recommending the country should "move on" from the Capitol raid.

In February 2021, Griffin became a visiting fellow with the Independent Women's Forum

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