White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who has not held a press conference in 50 days, just announced she will appear before reporters at noon Friday. McEnany’s last time at the podium was October 1.
In that time she has repeatedly appeared on Fox News and other right wing outlets, usually not as a White House official but as a Trump campaign spokesperson and advisor.
The last time McEnany appeared at the podium she “repeatedly refused to denounce white supremacy,” The New York Times had reported that day, “insisting that President Trump had already done so and angrily accusing the media of refusing to accept his answer.”
In a series of remarkably heated exchanges with reporters, even by the standards of the Trump White House, Ms. McEnany said that Mr. Trump has “always denounced any form of that” and read from past quotes from the president in which he condemned bigotry and racism, including “the K.K.K., neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups.”
But she would not explicitly condemn white supremacy from the briefing room lectern or specifically denounce the Proud Boys, a far-right group that Mr. Trump said should “stand back and stand by” during Tuesday’s presidential debate with Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Meanwhile, experts have accused her of breaking federal law.
Former Clinton White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart says her actions are “against the law.”
Last week McEnany showed it’s not possible to pretend to not be a White House official while representing a political candidate:
“The problem with Kayleigh McEnany is that she is paid with taxpayer dollars and uses that time to volunteer for the president’s already-lost campaign,” said Citizens for Ethics (CREW) in response to McEnany’s Fox appearance.