Obama officials left notes in Trump aides' offices: 'You will fail'

Some of Barack Obama‘s departing White House aides left biting notes for their successors in the Trump administration including messages that read ‘You will fail,’ according to the president’s press secretary.

Stephanie Grisham told a Virginia radio host at the White House on Tuesday about finding the notes, and office cabinets brimming with Obama-authored books.  

‘We came into the White House—I’ll tell you something, 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.» And in the press office, there was a big note taped to a door that said, «You will fail»,’ Grisham said.  

‘And they had filled, they had filled the—’ Grisham continued, before cutting herself off.

She told DailyMail.com after the broadcast that Obama aides had left cabinets in the press office ‘filled’ with books by President Obama.

And one particular ‘You will fail’ note, she said, was taped to the inside of one of those cabinet doors.

Seven former West Wing aides, all of whom came to the White House at the beginning of the Trump administration, told DailyMail.com after the broadcast first created a buzz on Twitter that they recalled hearing about it on day one.

‘It was a mess that first week,’ one recalled Tuesday.

‘Yeah, there were mean notes left in odd places. One in a deputy press secretary’s office, one inside a desk drawer in upper press, another on a bathroom mirror. They were all about how we were doomed to failure.’

Asked why no one saved photos of the notes, another aide who worked in the West Wing at the time said the staff was frantically trying to adjust to their new offices and new roles, and ‘it didn’t make the top 20 list of things we were thinking about.’

A third said after this story was first published: ‘Those notes definitely happened.

They even left us Russian vodka in the cabinet.’

‘They were trolling us from the minute we got there. It was definitely just ridiculous. We were trying to find the bathroom, and we get these notes saying «You will fail,» and «You’re not going to make it».’ 

Attempts on Tuesday to locate photos of any offending messages from that day, January 20, 2017, were unsuccessful. 

Grisham’s interview aired on WHKT 1650 AM in Norfolk.

It was one of several she conducted Tuesday morning as part of a ‘radio row’ event at the White House.

‘This is something we’re used to,’ she said of pot-shot attacks from Democrats. ‘Thankfully, the campaign trained me, us, the President, all of us, to be tough and to fight.’

‘It was just, it was sad.

It was pathetic,’ she said, denying the moment was eerie or frightening.

‘I fully intend when we leave in, you know, six years—I fully intend to leave a note in my [succeessor’s] drawer, you know, saying, «Good luck to you»,’ Grisham said.

‘I don’t care if it’s a Dem or a Republican. You’re serving your country. It’s the highest honor in the world.’

‘So if these people couldn’t recognize and stay above that, that was on them. And I often wonder if that person regrets it.

I hope so. But it just puts more fight in you.’ 

A Washington Post reporter first flagged Grisham’s comments on Twitter.

‘This is another bald faced lie,’ responded Susan Rice, who served as National Security Advisor in the final years of the Obama administration.

Rice wrote in her memoir ‘Tough Love’ that she left a kidn note to her successor, Gen. Michael Flynn, offering ‘my best wishes for his success in a job so crucial to the nation’s security.’

Cody Keenan, a former Obama speechwriter, quipped in a tweet: ‘I actually left an iPhone charger if anybody’s seen it, but no, nobody left unimaginative notes written at a sixth-grade level.’

One West Wing aide told DailyMail.com in 2017 about derogatory notes that the source said Obama officials left behind in West Wing offices, but the story could not be confirmed at the time. 

A SiriusXM reporter tweeted that ‘[d]uring the inauguration ceremony, the General Services Administration, which oversees the White House and the grounds, goes through the offices and cleans, removes crap (incl some liquor bottles on 1/20/17), repaints, puts in new furniture as needed etc.’

That tweet followed an ABC News correspondent recalling that he took photos in the West Wing on the first night of the new administration, and saying: ‘I saw no offices «filled with Obama books» and nobody mentioned «you will fail» notes.’

Many aides were in the West Wing immediately after Trump took his oath of office. 

In a statement to reporters after this story was published, Grisham said former Obama aides’ accounts didn’t disprove hers.

‘I’m not sure where their offices were, and certainly wasn’t implying every office had that issue.

In fact, I had a lovely note left for me in the East Wing, and I tracked the woman down and thanked her,’ she said.

‘I don’t know why everyone is so sensitive!’ Grisham added. ‘At the time we saw it as kind of a prank, and something that always happened.’