Washington
President Donald Trump’s new spokeswoman, Kayleigh McEnany, vowed Friday not to lie to reporters from the podium as she made her debut at the first White House briefing by a press secretary in more than a year.
“I will never lie to you,” McEnany told reporters. “You have my word on that.” But the briefing that followed included several misstatements and mischaracterizations nonetheless.
McEnany, who joined the White House last month, took the stage behind a podium that had quite literally been collecting cobwebs before the president began the practice of holding his own daily briefings because of the coronavirus.
McEnany said she spends most of the day with the president and is “constantly with him, absorbing his thinking.” She said she sees it as her “mission to bring you the mindset of the president, deliver those facts, so this president gets fair and accurate reporting and the American people get fair and accurate information.”
During past administrations, a formal briefing by a White House press secretary would hardly be news. But it was the first such briefing since March 11, 2019, when Sarah Sanders took to the podium for the first time in more than a month and was pressed on comments Trump reportedly made at a fundraiser claiming that Democrats hated Jewish people.
Sanders left her post that summer, and her successor, Stephanie Grisham, never held a briefing during her entire nine-month tenure.
The briefings were must-see TV during the early days of the Trump administration, when viewers would tune in to see Trump’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer, spar with the press. But the media-obsessed Trump, who sees himself as his best spokesman, communications director and strategist, came to the conclusion last year that the spectacle had diminishing returns, people close to him said at the time.
The White House has long made the case that the briefings are less important in the Trump administration because the president is so accessible, answering reporters’ questions on an often-daily basis.
Trump had been holding his own daily briefings through much of the pandemic, but scaled back this week amid concerns that he was doing himself political damage and as the White House tries to pivot toward a focus on reopening.—AP
