White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has become the ninth Trump associate present at the Rose Garden Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to test positive for the coronavirus. McEnany, who became defensive on Friday when she was questioned about when she knew that Counselor to the President Hope Hicks had a positive test Wednesday and/or Thursday morning insisted she had no prior knowledge of Hicks’ coronavirus status when she briefed the press on Thursday.
McEnany has flouted CDC guidelines on the deadly virus and vehemently supported and defended President Donald Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic.
Now she is being highly criticized for her behavior, including removing her mask when talking to reporters as recently as Sunday, despite having been exposed to several people who are coronavirus positive.
She’s also being denounced for her highly-defensive statement insisting she did not know about Hope Hicks’s diagnosis yet offering “no apologies to the colleagues and journalists she willfully put at risk.”
Here’s what journalists and others are saying: