When former US President Donald Trump was stressed, his staff would play the song "Memory" from the Broadway hit "Cats" to help him relax, Stephanie Grisham said after the House Jan. 6 committee hearing on Tuesday.
“His temper was scary. And swift,” she said, per the New York Times report. “He’d snap and almost lose control.”
Grisham was relating to her claims that when Trump became agitated, his staff resorted to calling in an assistant known as the "Music Man" to play him songs from musicals they knew would calm him down, such as "Memory."
She made her comments in response to Cassidy Hutchinson, a former staffer, who on Tuesday testified at length before the House select committee about Trump's character. She depicted a deranged leader who frequently went completely off the rails.
According to the report, the "Music Man" was Max Miller, a former lover of Grisham's who also worked for Trump, and who is now running for Congress as a Republican in Ohio.
While the committee has been looking into the January 6 attacks on Capitol Hill, some former members of Trump's staff have tried to destroy his reputation.
On January 6, 2021, when Congress met to count the Electoral College votes confirming Joe Biden's 2020 win, Hutchinson claimed Trump yelled and made it clear that he was aware that among his followers who had assembled on the Ellipse in Washington, DC, there were some who were violently inclined. He even allegedly yelled at the Secret Service to remove its magnetometers and let the people through after being informed that some people wanting to join his event were armed.
“You know, I don’t f***ing care that they have weapons,” Hutchinson recalled the former president saying. “They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f***ing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the f***ing mags away.”
According to the report, some aides believed that Trump's mental stability declined after his loss to Biden on November 3, 2020. The president appeared to be becoming more unbalanced, former attorney general Bill Barr reportedly claimed.
"I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has lost contact with — he’s become detached from reality," he testified.
Throughout the hearings, Trump has frequently posted on his own social media platform criticizing Hutchinson and others and disputing their accounts.