Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Kayleigh McEnany Watch: Abetting a coup

 

Kayleigh McEnany Watch: Abetting a coup

 

Opinion by 

Erik Wemple

Media critic

Dec. 16, 2020 at 3:50 p.m. CST

 

Fifteenth in an occasional series on White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, to prove the impossibility of speaking for President Trump.

 

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany makes a lot of news. Every time she takes questions from White House reporters, she says enough preposterous, false and risible things to launch hundreds of stories. Based on her Tuesday appearance at the White House lectern, news organizations covered her “victory lap” on vaccine development; her discussion of President Trump’s intent to veto the National Defense Authorization Act; her non-answer to a question about Trump’s reaction to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) recognizing Joe Biden as president-elect; and her “lazy attacks” on the media.

 

All perfectly fine stories.

 

Here’s what didn’t happen: News organizations did not heap coverage on a McEnany response to a question about the coming weeks. In the 2016 presidential transition, Trump was able to secure confirmation of key cabinet picks before the inauguration. Would Trump oppose a similar process for Biden’s nominees? “I think that’s a hypothetical,” said McEnany, articulating a lie: Biden is the president-elect and his nominees will come before the Senate sooner or later. “And, you know, he won’t get ahead of that activity actually happening. But he has taken all statutory requirements necessary to either ensure a smooth transition or a continuation of power.”

 

Boldface added to highlight a euphemism: A “continuation of power” is also called a “coup.”

 

Just one day before McEnany’s briefing — the first since Dec. 2 — electors across the country affirmed Biden’s 306-232 victory in the electoral college. In past cycles, the electoral college vote was a formality, little covered by the media. Thanks to the dozens of lawsuits from Trump and Republicans seeking to overturn the 2020 results, the activities of the electors this year were a topic of close attention.

 

Despite all the courthouse defeats — including a Supreme Court smackdown of the lawsuit from the Texas attorney general attempting to annul the popular vote in four states — McEnany & Co. trudge onward. “The president is still involved in ongoing litigation related to the election. Yesterday’s [electoral college] vote was one step in the constitutional process. So I will leave that to him and refer you to the campaign for more on that litigation,” said McEnany in Tuesday’s briefing.

 

The real briefing, however, took place hours later, when McEnany appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program. Running the Trump propaganda arm for five years confers certain privileges on Hannity, who doesn’t get the old contact-the-campaign runaround when he asks about election challenges. In response to Hannity’s question about a “forensic analysis” of voting machines, McEnany responded, “Well, it just shows that the machines had a very high error rate,” she said. “So what these forensic experts found is that when you have a 60 percent error rate, what that meant is the ballots then went to adjudication. And in process, that’s where the poll workers needed the safeguards, the signature-matching, the address verification. And when it goes to that point of adjudication, it’s there where those safeguards are so necessary.”'

 

Consider these numbers: McEnany has appeared on “Hannity” at least 21 times since the election; during the same time period, she has given three White House press briefings. In a statement to this blog last week, she defended herself: “As White House Press Secretary, there are a variety of ways to communicate with the American People that don’t involve being shouted at by activists, including the manner in which I’m communicating with you right now.”

 

What irony: On the one hand, McEnany is denouncing White House reporters as “activists,” presumably for calling out the president on his mendacious schemes. On the other hand, McEnany is abetting that man’s attempt to undo American democracy — an effort that qualifies as “activism” of a darker sort. As she left the lectern on Tuesday, CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta told her, “Kayleigh, isn’t it hypocritical for you to accuse others of disinformation when you spread it every day?”

 

That was another story line to emerge from Tuesday’s briefing.

 

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