Why did Donald Trump turn on Kayleigh McEnany?

In a moment that shocked some — but came as no surprise to others — Donald Trump turned on his former White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, on Tuesday night for allegedly sharing false polling numbers.

Ms McEnany, who served as the former president’s fourth press secretary, was known as one of his most loyal aides and staunch defenders when she was a reporter at Fox News after losing the 2020 election and leaving office. Joined as a contributor.

Still, the former president didn’t pull any punches in the Truth Social post, complaining about a segment he claimed misrepresented his lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

“Kayle ‘Milktoast’ McEnany just gave wrong poll numbers on Fox News,” Mr Trump wrote, misspelling the word milquetoast.

“I’m up 34 points on Desanctimonius, not 25 up. While 25 is great, it’s not 34,” he said, using one of his nicknames for his main GOP primary opponent.

“She knew the numbers had been corrected upward by a polling group. The RINOS and the Globalists could be onto her. FoxNews should only be using the Real Stars.”

Ouch.

The former president was referring to a segment of the Fox News show More numbersIn which Ms McEnany suggested Mr DeSantis was “bridging the gap” with Mr Trump as he officially launched his 2024 campaign.

Outraged Republicans jumped to Ms McEnany’s defense on Twitter, noting how she defended the former president during some of the most difficult moments of his presidency from what they see as a hostile press.

How did their professional relationship develop and why would he turn it on now?

Originally from Tampa, Florida, Ms. McEnany has been involved in Republican politics since college. Prior to taking on the role of paid commentator at CNN, she interned for several politicians and wrote media briefings for the White House Communications Office under President George W. Bush.

At the start of candidate Trump’s 2016 run for the White House, Ms. McEnany criticized Mr. Trump for calling him a “showman”, saying that his comments about Mexicans were “racist”, and calling it “unfortunate and was “unattainable”. him a Republican. She later got behind the Trump 2016 campaign that saw him elected.

In mid-August 2017, during the first year of the Trump presidency, McEnany left CNN and was appointed spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. During this period he spoke on behalf of the RNC, notably defending Mr. Trump from bipartisan criticism of his comments about a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In April 2020, during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, Mark Meadows replaced Mick Mulvaney as White House Chief of Staff, and shortly after, appointed Ms McEnany as press secretary.

In the race for her appointment, she was particularly vocal in her praise of how she believes Mr. Trump is handling the pandemic: “This president will always put America first, he will always protect American citizens. We will fight against the coronavirus.” We won’t see such diseases come here, we won’t see terrorism, and isn’t it refreshing to compare it with the terrible presidency of Barack Obama?

At that point the virus had already been present in the US for a month. She also accused Democrats of trying to “politicize” Covid-19 and claimed they were “rooting for this outcome”.

Such statements set the tone for his tenure in the White House, with the Associated Press saying of him that he “made it clear from his first briefing that he was ready to share his boss’s view of himself as well as his biggest mistakes.” Ready to defend the statements”.

In her first press briefing, she vowed to reporters: “I will never lie to you. You have my word on that.

In those last nine months of the Trump administration, he staunchly supported every one of his controversial statements and actions, whether it was related to the pandemic, false accusations of murder, or allegations of vote-by-mail fraud.

Ms McEnany defended Mr Trump after he forcefully cleared Lafayette Square of protesters for a photo-op, and even after a recording surfaced of him saying he was infected with the Covid-19 virus He said he had never done so, despite his repeated public statements to that effect.

he was referred to as a “Kingdom Evangelist” Clinton administration press secretary Joe Lockhart said that he had “destroyed his personal credibility and seriously injured his ability to speak for the president, and more importantly, for the United States of America”.

PolitiFact, the non-profit fact-checking website, has since said that his statements were either “mostly false”, “false” and “ridiculous claims” about 56 percent of the time.

When the organization double-checked their claims, they were found to be “mostly” honest only 28 percent of the time.

In the 2020 election, Ms. McEnany lied about her boss’s false claim of victory and rampant voter fraud, and when she refused to admit it, she falsely claimed that she was subjected to a systematic fraud by the previous Obama administration. The transition was not given – which was not true.

Two months after the January 6 Capitol riot and six weeks after the inauguration of President Joe Biden, McEnany joined Fox News as an on-air contributor, becoming co-host. in greater numbers.

Former White House aide Alyssa Farah Griffin, who has publicly denounced Mr Trump and become one of his fiercest critics, described Ms McEnany as a “very smart person” but a Also as a “liar”, one who lied at the polls because she knew it would enrich her. Career Post-Trump.

Speaking to the House Select Committee on 6 January, Ms Farrah Griffin said: “She knew we had lost the election, but she made a calculation that she wanted a certain life after Trump, in her good graces for He needed to stay and that was more important than telling the truth to the American public.

On Ms McEnany’s appointment to Fox News, a network insider told the daily beast: “It is truly abhorrent that they fired hard working journalists who worked about facts and news reporting only to turn around and hire a mini-Goebbels whose constant lies from the White House have ruined our lives.” Helped incite an uprising over democracy that left five people dead, including a police officer.”

Since arriving at the network, Ms. McEnany has continued to defend her former boss on air and appears to fit well into the role, also stepping in as a guest host during primetime.

Former President Trump has a slightly more complicated relationship with the network than he did in office, often criticizing “globalist” coverage while praising individual hosts, and facing numerous investigations of his business and actions while still in office. But getting their support.

On June 1 he will participate in a televised town hall from Iowa moderated by Fox News primetime host Sean Hannity as part of his 2024 re-election campaign, but on May 31 he posted on TruthSocial: “FoxNews really de Advancing Sanximonius. He can’t win!

While his dismissive comments about Ms McEnany have angered, and even shocked, some conservatives, including her former colleagues Ms Farrah Griffin and Stephanie Grisham – who took on the role of press secretary Played – they were surprised.

Ms Grisham tweeted: “He. Desire. turn. But. You. Loyalty is only to him – the country, the constitution, its constituents, or anything/no one else.

Ms. McEnany and others probably should have known better.