It has been almost eight months since a White House press secretary came to the podium in the briefing room to field questions from reporters in a traditional format and the Trump administration has no plans to resume the daily and sometimes combative encounters with the White House press corps.

“President Trump communicates directly with the American people more than any President in history. The fact that the White House Press Corps can no longer grandstand on TV is of no concern to us,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said to ABC News.

In previous administrations, regular press briefings have been a centerpiece of the White House communications operation by which the White House both advances their public messaging and engages in a a regular exchange of information with the media on the pressing issues of the day.

But in the Trump White House, Donald Trump has done away with the regular press briefings that became a news spectacle under his first press secretary, Sean Spicer, and became increasingly infrequent under his second press secretary, Sarah Sanders, who was the last Trump press secretary to brief in the James Brady briefing room on March 11.

Sanders departed the White House in the summer, and since being succeeded in the job by Stephanie Grisham at the end of June, there has not been a single on-camera briefing or on-camera gaggle by the White House’s top communications official. Beyond the traditional press briefing, Grisham has only appeared on Fox News, where she appears regularly.

"I think right now we're doing just fine" — @PressSec #ThisIsFineDogDotGif pic.twitter.com/uevUkoTevM

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 1, 2019

A White House official said that Grisham will likely do more interviews in the months ahead but noted that she has her own style to approaching the job as press secretary, which is one of three hats she wears at the White House. Grisham also fills the role of White House communications director and continues to manage communications for first lady Melania Trump.

And while Grisham may hold the highest level communications role within the administration at the staff level, the official said the president is the ultimate decision-maker on whether or not to hold press briefings. The president is pleased with the current communications operation, the official said.

Grisham also has a rather sordid past and has been arrested twice for driving while intoxicated.

From AZCentral:

On Jan. 9, 2013, when she was working for Horne, Gilbert police arrested Grisham on suspicion of driving under the influence and driving faster than reasonable, records show.

She planned to go to trial and the matter dragged out for more than a year before she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor reckless driving in August 2014. She spent a night in jail and was placed on two years’ probation.

The case returned to court twice over Grisham’s failure to pay the $779 in fines and her not completing a session with Mothers Against Drunk Driving about the impact of impaired driving.

On Dec. 5, 2015, months after joining the Trump campaign, Grisham found trouble again.

Scottsdale police arrested her that night on suspicion of DUI and driving without her headlights on shortly after midnight.

She failed to show in court on Jan. 19, 2016, a day when Trump received the endorsement of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in Ames, Iowa. Her absence in court cost Grisham her driver’s license for a month.

Grisham pleaded guilty to misdemeanor DUI in July 2016, days before her attendance at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, where Trump officially became the GOP nominee.

As part of that case, she had to pay nearly $1,600 in fines and fees, records show.

Two weeks after Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, Grisham failed to appear in Scottsdale court again. That was the day Trump convened a meeting with national media figures at Trump Tower in New York to shred them for coverage of his campaign.

“I knew (the arrests) were there, but I didn’t think they inhibited the job. There are people that work with DUIs in newspaper reporting. It’s unfortunate, but that stuff will happen. Human frailty has to be dealt with.”

Grisham finished paying her debt in the case on Jan. 9, 2017, less than two weeks before Trump was sworn into office.

Once upon a time, Stephanie Grisham was married to Arizona TV news anchor Dan Marries. Grisham’s ex is the father of her older son, Kurtis, as his personal biography confirms. “Dan is the father of three boys — Kurtis, Dean, and Preston, who was born on April 27, 2019,” the bio states. “He’s the lucky husband of Jennifer, who’s originally from Nassau, Bahamas. The were married in 2010 and love calling Tucson home.”

It’s not clear when Grisham and Marries wed and divorced, but the two did go to court over child support at one point. It looks like whatever issue that arose has since been resolved, but we’re not sure if the two are on good terms at the time of this writing.