Kayleigh McEnany

While in law school, McEnany appeared on CNN as a paid commentator. She supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.[9][10][11] However, in early 2015, before becoming a Trump supporter, McEnany was highly critical of him, declaring on CNN and Fox Business that "Donald Trump has shown himself to be a showman" and it was "unfortunate" and "inauthentic" to call him a Republican. McEnany called his comments about Mexican immigrants "racist".[12] She began supporting Trump after receiving advice over cocktails from Michael Marcantonio, a fellow summer associate at a law firm and a Democrat. He told her that "Donald Trump is going to be your nominee," and if "a smart, young, blond Harvard graduate" wanted "to get on television and have a career as a political pundit, you would be wise to be an early backer." According to The Guardian, she took this advice.[13]

On August 5, 2017, McEnany left her position at CNN.[14] The following day, she hosted a 90-second webcast, Real News Update[15] on Trump's personal Facebook page. She praised Trump throughout the segment, saying she had brought the "real news" to the American people.[16]

Former employer Mike Huckabee has called her a "meticulous researcher" and "extraordinarily prepared." Her rapid occupational success was noted by Van Jones, CNN commentator and liberal activist who worked with her at CNN. "I'm not trying to defend the messaging, but what I hope people can acknowledge is there's very few people in either party who can accomplish what Kayleigh has accomplished in such a short time... People keep taking her lightly, and they keep regretting it."[2]

McEnany has been closely associated with the Republican Party since she was in college. She was critical of the Obama presidency, and in 2012 posted several tweets questioning Barack Obama's birthplace, echoing the "birther" conspiracy theorist movement.[17] In 2012, McEnany tweeted about Obama's half-brother Malik Obama, who lives in Kenya: "How I Met Your Brother – Never mind, forgot he's still in that hut in Kenya".[2]

In 2017, she responded to claims it was hypocritical of Trump to visit his golf course while president by mistakenly claiming that President Obama rushed off to a golf game after the 2002 beheading of Daniel Pearl. Obama was a state senator at the time of Pearl's murder. McEnany later apologized for the comment, noting that Obama went golfing after the 2014 murder of another journalist, James Foley, who was beheaded by ISIS in Syria. Obama, who was vacationing on Martha's Vineyard at the time, admitted that he should have "anticipated the optics" of golfing immediately after making a press statement on Foley's death.[18][19] On August 7, 2017, the Republican National Committee (RNC) appointed McEnany as its national spokesperson.[20][21] In 2017, as RNC spokeswoman, McEnany supported Trump amid a bipartisan backlash in response to his comments about a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which he suggested that white supremacists and anti-racist counterprotesters shared blame for violence; in a tweet, McEnany wrote that the Republican Party supported Trump's "message of love and inclusiveness."[22]

In August 2019, McEnany told CNN's Chris Cuomo: "I don't believe the president has lied."[23]

In the weeks before her appointment as White House press secretary, McEnany praised Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying, "This president will always put America first, he will always protect American citizens. We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here, we will not see terrorism, and isn't that refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of Barack Obama?"[24][25] The disease had been present in the United States for at least a month prior to McEnany's claim that the virus would not "come here"; in December 2020 Politico named McEnany's prediction one of "the most audacious, confident and spectacularly incorrect prognostications about the year".[26] In March 2020, McEnany said Democrats were trying "to politicize" the coronavirus and that Democrats were almost "rooting for this outcome."[17]

In the weeks following, McEnany was criticized for her remarks. Author Grant Stern tweeted, "Kayleigh McEnany is coming to the White House with new 'alternative facts' about #coronavirus. The rest of the world calls them lies." McEnany responded that she was referring to Trump's travel ban.[17]

After Mark Meadows replaced Mick Mulvaney as White House chief of staff in April 2020, Meadows's first personnel change was hiring McEnany as White House press secretary on April 7, 2020, which was officially announced the next day.[27] Stephanie Grisham, who had served in the role and as White House communications director since June 2019, became First Lady Melania Trump's chief of staff and spokesperson.[28]

Two months into her tenure, the Associated Press wrote of McEnany, she "has made clear from her first briefing that she's willing to defend her boss's view of himself as well as his most flagrant misstatements."[29]

In April 2020, McEnany defended Trump's assertion that the World Health Organization had shown a "clear bias towards China" and said that the WHO put Americans at risk by "repeating inaccurate claims peddled by China during the coronavirus pandemic" and "opposing the United States' life-saving travel restrictions."[30]

When Trump was criticized by experts for suggesting at a press conference that the coronavirus could be treated with disinfectant injections, McEnany said that his remarks were taken out of context. Trump later said the suggestion was sarcastic,[31][32] although there was no indication in his statement that he was making a joke.[32]

McEnany at a press conference in May 2020

McEnany with President Donald Trump in September 2020

On May 1, 2020, as part of her first public press briefing and the first one by a White House press secretary in 417 days, McEnany was asked by an Associated Press reporter: "Will you pledge to never lie to us from that podium?" McEnany replied: "I will never lie to you. You have my word on that."[33][34] On the subject of Trump's responses to the coronavirus pandemic, she claimed, "This president has always sided on the side of data". In response to allegations of Trump's sexual misconduct, McEnany said: "He has always told the truth."[34] McEnany falsely claimed that the Mueller Report as part of the larger investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 Presidential election had resulted in a "complete and total exoneration of President Trump," despite the report reading "Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."[35]

Amid reports on May 8, 2020, that the White House was "shelving" the release of COVID-19 re-opening guidelines, McEnany said that the guidelines had not been approved by Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Following Associated Press reports that Redfield had previously cleared the release of the guidance, Redfield addressed the issue personally, saying that the documents were still in "draft form" and had been released for "interagency review", not for public dissemination.[36][37] That same week, Obama, in a private phone call with members of his former administration, described the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus crisis as "an absolute chaotic disaster". McEnany responded the next day by providing a statement to CNN claiming that, to the contrary, the "response has been unprecedented and saved American lives."[38]

In May 2020, McEnany defended Trump's false accusation that Joe Scarborough had a person murdered, offering no evidence in support of the accusation.[39] The same month, McEnany defended claims that Trump made about the dangers of vote by mail, repeating his inaccurate claims that vote by mail has a "high propensity for voter fraud." McEnany herself has voted by mail 11 times in 10 years.[40]

In June 2020, she defended the decision by the Trump administration to forcibly remove peaceful protestors using smoke canisters, pepper balls, riot shields, batons, officers on horseback and rubber bullets[41] so that Trump could stage a photo op in front of St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square in Washington. She likened Trump's action to that of Winston Churchill walking the streets to survey bomb damage during World War II.[42] When General Jim Mattis, former secretary of defense in the Trump administration, condemned Trump's action, McEnany described Mattis' comments as "little more than a self-promotional stunt to appease the DC elite."[43]

On September 9, 2020, news agencies released the audio recordings of interviews with Trump that former Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward had conducted in February and March 2020 for his book Rage, in which Trump acknowledged to Woodward that he was intentionally downplaying the severity of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which CNN had obtained ahead of the book’s September 15, 2020 release.[44] In the wake of this development, McEnany falsely asserted, "The president never downplayed the virus."[45] In fact, Trump repeatedly and publicly downplayed the risk of the virus and the severity of the pandemic, and in a recorded March 19, 2020 interview with Woodward said, "I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."[45] In response to McEnany's comment, Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple wrote that she had sacrificed her credibility;[46] while Joe Lockhart, who served as White House Press Secretary during the Clinton administration, wrote her answers confirmed her as a "state propagandist".[47]

On October 5, 2020, McEnany tested positive for COVID-19.[48][49] Even though she had interacted with individuals who had been diagnosed with coronavirus days prior, McEnany on several occasions spoke with the press while not wearing a mask before she ultimately tested positive for the coronavirus.[48] Among McEnany's staff members to also test positive for COVID-19 was Chad Gilmartin,[50] the cousin of McEnany's husband.[51]

While ballots were still being counted on election day, McEnany made an early false declaration of victory for Trump.[52] After Joe Biden won the election and President Donald Trump refused to concede, McEnany spread false claims of fraud in the 2020 election.[53][54] On November 20, 2020, McEnany falsely claimed Trump was not given an "orderly transition of power".[55][56] Previously in 2016, within two days of Trump's victory, his opponent Hillary Clinton conceded to Trump, while then-President Obama had recognized Trump as president-elect and hosted Trump at the White House. Trump himself thanked Obama and his wife "for their gracious aid throughout this transition". Trump's transition was indeed disorderly, because Trump fired the leader of his transition team (Chris Christie), threw out months of transition planning, and rejected help from the Obama administration.[57] McEnany's comment was stated while Trump himself was refusing to recognize his opponent Joe Biden's victory as legitimate; Trump was also actively delaying the start of a transfer of power to president-elect Biden for two weeks.[58]

Following the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, Randall Lane, writing for Forbes, warned corporations against hiring McEnany or other previous Trump press secretary, stating that "Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie. We're going to scrutinize, double-check, investigate with the same skepticism we'd approach a Trump tweet. Want to ensure the world's biggest business media brand approaches you as a potential funnel of disinformation? Then hire away."[59]