Kayleigh McEnany began Thursday’s press briefing by lying. She gave a biography of Trump’s religious zealot nominee for the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, in which she explained that Barrett “also is a Rhodes scholar.” She wasn’t. She isn’t. She will never be one. It’s a strange boast, but that comes with the general lack of thoroughness and sloppy lying that has been the trademark of this administration. When McEnany was told that Barrett had received a BA from Rhodes College in Tennessee, and she was not a “Rhodes scholar,” McEnany said: “My bad,” and “that’s what I have here.” Such a lazy bit of lying. The two things are only connected by the word “Rhodes.”
Anyway, that was the least of the bonkers things coming from the Trump administration’s sociopathic-seeming mouthpiece on Thursday. It was one of quite a few moments that left all of us watching while slowly and sadly shaking our heads.
Remember how during the debate, Donald Trump said some strange thing about mail-in ballots being found in “wastepaper” baskets and “thrown in a river?” Yeah, that was weird. Want to see something just as weird? Here’s McEnany using a phrase we will hear time and time again from this administration: “forest from the trees.” The highlight of the below exchange is McEnany saying that the press has no “journalistic curiosity” about the very thing Fox News’ Jon Decker is asking her about, and she is not answering.
The origin of this bit of b.s. is a “highly unusual” announcement by United States Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania David Freed, a Republican, that he was opening an investigation into nine military absentee ballots with “potential issues” in Pennsylvania that were maybe discarded.
Then there was Fox News reporter John Roberts asking whether or not McEnany would “denounce,” on behalf of Trump, white supremacy. Enjoy the fireworks.
That led to Roberts reporting back to his outlet in such frustration that his Fox News colleague was sort of speechless.
Then there was McEnany’s responses to why Trump was insisting, over the protests of state and local health officials, on holding rallies in Wisconsin. “People can choose whether or not to come.” Just an aside: This is what con men say when they are busted for conning people.
And the banality of evil present in this clip about Barrett’s education, you know: “Rhodes scholar,” “Rhodes College”—you say tomato, I say potato, pajamas ...
When CNN followed up with questions about Trump’s gross “stand by” statement about the Proud Boys, McEnany attempted to attack CNN for being fake news, at which point the reporter asking the question pointed out that answering this question is very specifically the No. 1 job McEnany has.