McEnany ditches White House job for 43 days so she can campaign for Trump

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has been shirking her taxpayer-funded job to be a spokesperson for Donald Trump’s failed reelection bid — a move that blurs ethical lines.

McEnany is currently earning a taxpayer-funded salary of $183,000, according to White House records. Yet she is acting as a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign — something former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart told the Associated Press is “both outrageous and damaging.”

The last on camera press briefing McEnany held from the White House briefing room was on Oct. 1 — the same day it became clear a coronavirus outbreak had hit Trump’s inner circle when news broke that aide Hope Hicks had tested positive for the virus.

Trump announced he had contracted the virus a day later, while McEnany said she tested positive for the virus on Oct. 5.

The same day McEnany announced she tested positive for the virus, she answered two questions from the media without her mask — possibly exposing reporters to the virus.

Since then, McEnany has held just one gaggle with reporters in her official role as White House press secretary, according to a review of transcripts posted to the White House website.

At that gaggle, which took place aboard Air Force One on Oct. 30, she answered questions about Trump’s meeting with rapper Lil Wayne.

“The President met with Lil Wayne this morning, in Miami, in a really good, productive meeting,” McEnany said. “Lil Wayne’s team had been talking to the White House, and Lil Wayne directly to the White House, for a little bit.”

In that same gaggle, a reporter asked McEnany a campaign question, which she refused to answer because she said she was not part of the campaign — a comment reporters called her out on.

Per a transcript of the gaggle:

REPORTER: Kayleigh, the president has previously said that he might be willing to put money into his own campaign. Do you know if that’s been discussed or whether he’s still considering putting money into his own campaign?

 

MCENANY: I’d have to refer you to the campaign on that.  But, you know —

 

REPORTER: But you’ve been speaking on behalf of campaign.  Can we ask in your —

 

MCENANY: Yeah, he’s —

 

REPORTER: personal capacity if that’s the case?  Or —

 

MCENANY: No, you know, I’ve just been repeating the statements that the campaign put out. But I can’t provide any new information. That’d be the campaign.

But on Wednesday, McEnany refused to answer a question from “Fox & Friends” about Trump, citing her role with the campaign.

“I haven’t spoken to the president about that. That would be a question more for the White House,” McEnany said when asked about whether Trump will stop blocking President-elect Joe Biden from receiving intelligence briefings. “But I will say that all laws are being followed with regard to an expected transition, though we expect to continue on as the Trump administration. We will see how our litigation goes.”

Ultimately, McEnany has been pushing Trump’s corrosive and baseless lie that the 2020 election was rife with fraud — a lie Trump is using to try to overturn his loss to Biden.

It’s the complete opposite message she pushed in 2016 when she condemned those who did not accept Trump as president-elect.