By the main gates of Georgetown University last month, Farah Griffin emerged from her Uber in a scarlet pantsuit. It was a crisp autumn-like day and as we walked to Healy Hall, Farah Griffin cautioned that she had no idea how many students would show up for the final meeting of her discussion group, “The Future of America’s Democracy in the Midst of the ‘MAGA’ movement.” She’d applied for the Fellows Program last year but didn’t get it; this year, Georgetown reached out.
Inside the GU Politics office, CNN legal analyst and Farah Griffin’s colleague Eliot Williams was wrapping up. As roughly a dozen students tricked in, Farah Griffin put out a bag of assorted candies and added her copy of Valerie Biden Owens’s book to a bookshelf. (“I had her sign it to Georgetown,” she explained later.) Photos of notable people GU Politics has hosted—Mark Zuckerberg, Paul Ryan—adorned the walls.
“Everyone who had COVID, welcome back,” Farah Griffin announced, kicking things off with an ice-breaker. This week’s, “What’s your serial-killer trait,” went on for about 15 minutes. (Farah Griffin’s: “For a while, I decided I didn’t like milk so I’d have cereal with water.”) She then dove into a recent Atlantic article in which Trump supporters explained why they believe the election was stolen—the goal being to get the students to see, contrary to what their perceptions may be, what in fact “drives Trump voters,” a topic that, along with tangents about vaccine hesitancy, took up most of the 90 minutes.
A freshman named Ava told me on her way out that she’d learned more from Farah Griffin than any other fellow—even, she revealed in hushed tones, as a Democrat. “At first it was like, she worked for Trump. I am fundamentally, ideologically opposed to her. But just from coming to a few of her discussions”—including the one where she brought Jake Sherman—she was struck by Farah Griffin’s focus on “humanity rather than political identification,” she says. “I mean, I still disagree with her, but I think she’s incredible.”
After class, Farah Griffin and I found a booth at The Tombs, that dimly-lit, brick-walled Georgetown haunt that inspired the titular bar in St. Elmo’s Fire. (Not Farah Griffin’s first choice, which was closed, but one she concluded, as her stilettos clicked against the cobblestone streets, was “actually much more my vibe.”)
Sitting across from her in that basement rathskeller I found myself wondering who Farah Griffin, after making all these headlines proclaiming she’d never vote for Trump again, will attach herself to in the future. I asked her whether she’d vote for Ron DeSantis. “It depends. I’d have to see where his policies come down,” she said over a glass of pinot grigio. It was a somewhat shocking nonanswer about a character in the Republican Party seemingly as dedicated as Trump is to raising the temperature of conservative politics. What about the positions he’s already taken? “For most politicians—not Trump—leadership tends to drive them toward moderation,” she says, “a DeSantis in the White House would look very different than a DeSantis governing Florida at a time when Florida’s very red, thinking about running for president. ”
Farah Griffin can’t see herself running for anything at this time, only because she’s “not someone who could win a Republican primary right now,” but wants to “be part of the discussion when we do course correct.” For now, though, she says she’s not actively soliciting political work, or being paid to advise any Republicans (though she does so in an unofficial, unpaid capacity). She considers her full-time job to be at Merrimack Potomac + Charles, the strategy advising firm where she’s a senior adviser (and where her father-in-law, patrick griffins, is founding partner and CEO). There’s also the CNN gig, two paid speaking bureaus she’s signed with, and whatever episodes of The View she’s asked to guest-cohost until they come to a decision. She was just on the show last week, when Hostin dragged her on-air for defending Esper’s “apology tour.” The moment made headlines.
That the competition for McCain’s seat has, at least on the surface, come down to two former Trump officials who are both trying to reframe their history is hardly a coincidence. The View is a platform having its own reckoning, one that gives Farah Griffin an opportunity to put her experience to use for the time being. “I think I could be helpful,” she said. She talks a lot about her commitment to public service; daytime TV is not that. But it could be a decade until she has another opportunity to serve in a senior role in government, Farah Griffin admits. “I’d have a very hard time saying no to any program that reaches the number of viewers that that show does.”