Tag: Kayleigh McEnany

Kayleigh McEnany lashes out at the press for accurately quoting her saying ‘science should not stand in the way’ of school openings

AlterNet logoWhite House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany lashed out at the media on Thursday after she garnered criticism for her remarks about science and decisions on school reopenings.

Speaking during the afternoon’s press briefing, McEnany stumbled into a gaffe when she urged schools across the country reopen despite the ongoing pandemic and said: “The science should not stand in the way of this.”

This sounded as though she thought schools should reopen regardless of what the science says. The slip-up clearly played into one of the consistent criticisms of the Trump administration — and the GOP more broadly — that it refuses to accept scientific conclusions it finds ideologically inconvenient. Continue reading.

The political theater of Kayleigh McEnany’s scripted walk-offs

Washington Post logoKayleigh McEnany’s press briefings don’t just draw to a close. They tend to end with a flourish — a true walk-off moment.

It happened again at the White House on Monday. President Trump’s press secretary was speaking to reporters when one asked about his denial of reports that Russian operatives offered bounties to Taliban members who kill American troops in Afghanistan. But, a reporter noted, Trump had also claimed that he had never been briefed on the subject — so how could he be certain there were never any bounties?

McEnany was ready for this one.

Quickly flipping pages in her briefing binder, McEnany launched into an extended critique of the New York Times, which broke the Russia story last week. Reading from her notes, she rattled off a series of alleged errors published by the Times in its reporting about Russia over the past four years, including a claim that 17 intelligence agencies had agreed about Russian interference in the 2016 election. (Only four agencies had done so.) Continue reading.

Kayleigh McEnany paints a devastating picture of Trump — blinkered, ignorant, and bumbling

AlterNet logoWhen White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany took to the lectern on Monday to address reporters, it was presumably her intention to defend President Donald Trump. That is, as she sees it, her job. But whatever her intentions, the defense she offered of the president was anything but.

She portrayed the president as uninformed, steadfastly resistant to new information, and recklessly bumbling his way through presidential duties.

Addressing the most recent international scandal plaguing the White House, McEnany said the president was never briefed on intelligence reports that Russia put bounties on the heads of American soldiers to incentivize Afghanistan fighters to kill them. She said the intelligence community did not have a “consensus” on the reports of the Russian bounties. Continue reading.

McEnany: We ‘need to’ be asking whether police brutality caught on video is real

Trump recently promoted a conspiracy theory suggesting a 75-year-old protester attacked by police was faking it.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday defended Trump’s smear of a 75-year-old peace activist who was brutalized by police, saying Trump’s baseless accusation that the man was a member of antifa and possibly faked his injuries was “legitimate.”

“The president was raising questions based on a report that he saw. They are questions that need to be asked,” McEnany said during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

The man had “some very questionable tweets, some profanity-laden tweets about police officers,” she said. Continue reading.

White House Has ‘No Regrets’ About Violently Clearing Nearby Protest

Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany says Donald Trump has nothing to be sorry for and repeated his antifa conspiracy theories.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Monday that President Donald Trump’s administration regrets nothing about police using violent force to clear peaceful anti-racism protesters outside the White House last week.

“There’s no regrets on the part of this White House because, look, I’d note that many of those decisions were not made here within the White House,” she said, pointing to Attorney General William Barr as the one who called for law enforcement to enclose on the perimeter of the protest.

McEnany’s defense comes a week after various law enforcement agencies cleared protesters demanding an end to police brutality against Black Americans in Lafayette Square, the park outside the White House, 30 minutes before a curfew went into effect. According to reporters and footage from the protest, police used tear gas, pepper spray, smoke canisters, stun grenades and rubber bullets to clear the largely peaceful crowd ― though Trump’s administration specifically denies the use of tear gas. Continue reading.

Trump Press Secretary Admits She Has Voted 11 Times By Mail

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany made the case for allowing more people to vote by mail during the November election when she defended her decision to cast absentee ballots 11 times in the past 10 years.

“Absentee voting has the word absent in it for a reason,” McEnany said in a press statement on Wednesday. “It means you’re absent from the jurisdiction or unable to vote in person.”

Health experts have warned that in-person voting during this pandemic inevitably means a high risk of infection, making it difficult or impossible for many people to do it. Continue reading.

Kayleigh McEnany’s latest briefing is a case study in gaslighting, whataboutism and false claims

Washington Post logoWhite House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany held her latest news briefing Tuesday. And as with her previous ones, she put the “brief” in “briefing” — it ran only about 20 minutes.

But that was plenty of time for McEnany to engage in some massive false claims, gaslighting and whataboutism.

Early in the briefing, McEnany was asked about President Trump apparently ridiculing his probable 2020 opponent, Joe Biden, for how he looked in a mask during a Memorial Day ceremony in Delaware on Monday. Continue reading.

McEnany Cites Failed Pandemic Exercise To Prove White House Was Prepared

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed on Thursday that the Obama administration had left behind an “insufficient” pandemic response plan, and that Donald Trump had replaced it with a superior version that left his team completely prepared to face the current coronavirus crisis.

“The Obama-Biden plan that has been referenced was insufficient,” McEnany said during a press gaggle, citing the former administration’s pandemic playbook, first reported by Politicoback in March.

She then bragged that the Trump administration had instead put together “an entire 2018 pandemic preparedness report,” and “did a whole exercise on pandemic preparedness in August of last year and had an entire after-action report put together” on the matter. Continue reading.

Kayleigh McEnany Derides Mass Testing, But She’s Tested Every Week

President Donald Trump has no plan for stopping COVID-19 from ravaging the country, so he expects the rest of us to simply continue on with our lives — no matter the cost.

But there is a plan in place for him to avoid the virus. Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and those around them are frequently being tested for the coronavirus to keep White House leadership safe, even while testing for regular Americans remains inadequate.

Among those who are tested regularly in the president’s inner circle is White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, according to the New York Times:

At the White House, Mr. Trump’s new press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, reinforced the impression that administration officials were getting preferential treatment when she delivered her first news briefing on Friday — without a mask. She is among the group of senior officials tested weekly, as all assistants and deputy assistants to the president are, an official said on Friday. Aides who are lower in rank are tested based on how often they are in proximity to Mr. Trump.

Continue reading.

New White House press secretary vows never to lie at inaugural briefing

The Hill logoWhite House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany in her first formal briefing said Friday that she would never lie to the press.

“I will never lie to you. You have my word on that,” McEnany said when asked by a reporter if she would pledge to never lie to the White House press corps from the podium.

McEnany took the podium in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room for the first time on Friday, just weeks after assuming the role as press secretary. Friday’s briefing marked the first briefing from the press secretary in over a year. Continue reading.