Trump's new press secretary spends first month slinging insults on Fox

Kayleigh McEnany left Donald Trump’s reelection campaign to become his latest press secretary earlier this month. Since then, she has made at least five appearances on Fox News, held just one press event, and spent a lot of time attacking people on Twitter.

Soon after she joined the White House, McEnany appeared on the April 16 episode of “Fox & Friends.” She used the appearance to take aim at media outlets that did not give unlimited free airtime to Trump’s error-riddled coronavirus briefings.

“It’s shameful that CNN did not take the first part of the briefing. They’ve made that a trend,” she said. “It is shameful that MSNBC cut away from the briefing yesterday as President Trump praised American workers for making ventilators.”

Two days later, she appeared on Fox’s “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” talking up Trump’s pandemic response and arguing that the nation can safely ease social distancing rules and reopen the “hottest economy in modern history.” Medical experts have warned that abandoning stay-at-home orders too soon could cause a spike in coronavirus cases and hurt the economy in the long run.

Last Wednesday, McEnany paid a visit to Fox’s “Outnumbered Overtime.” This time, she went after Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, accusing him of “ridiculous” criticism of Trump’s support for protests against stay-at-home orders. She also attacked Democrats in Congress, claiming they “slow-walked” their pandemic response by disagreeing with Trump’s January restrictions on travel to the U.S. from China. Experts say that it was Trump who wasted two months before fully addressing the pandemic and that there is little evidence his limited travel restrictions made much difference.

McEnany appeared on “Fox & Friends Saturday” this weekend, once more hammering congressional Democratic leaders.

“Again, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer delayed that for a week,” she said, blaming Democrats for not immediately pumping hundreds of billions in funding into the troubled Paycheck Protection Program. “You know, she’s out doing late-night TV in front of her ice cream freezer, but President Trump has really motivated both parties to get back to work.” House Speaker Pelosi recently showed a late night TV host that she keeps a stock of premium ice cream in a freezer, which Republicans used to attack her.

Monday morning, McEnany was on Fox’s “America’s Newsroom.” She reprised her mockery of Pelosi’s ice cream, saying the California Democrat “was out on late-night television, she was out eating ice cream as literally people were being potentially being laid off or worrying about their paychecks; so Nancy Pelosi, she won’t lay off the ice cream but she’s just fine with laying off workers and that’s a shame.”

McEnany, who has held just one informal press gaggle so far, replaced Stephanie Grisham as press secretary. Over her roughly eight-month tenure, Grisham famously refused to hold a single press briefing — even after two writers offered to give $200,000 to charity if she would do one.

Indeed, the last official White House press conference was held by then-press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in March 2019.

In addition to her Fox News appearances, McEnany has used the official White House press secretary Twitter account to attack Trump’s favorite targets: Pelosi, CNN’s Jim Acosta, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and CNN.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.