Category: McEnany
According to the Times, American intelligence officials “concluded months ago” that Russian intelligence officers had secretly offered rewards for successful attacks on coalition forces, including the targeting of U.S. troops. Subsequent stories by the Times and The Washington Post reported that the Russian rewards resulted in the deaths of U.S. troops and that American combat fatalities from the past 18 months are being reviewed in light of the alleged bounties.
Trump reportedly was briefed on the intelligence in March, according to the Times, and the White House has been weighing how to punish Russia for the scheme, though no action had been authorized. The president and the White House have repeatedly denied that Trump knew about the allegations.
But McEnany’s insistence about the lack of “consensus” on Monday contradicted the president, who late Sunday night tweeted that “Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me” or Vice President Mike Pence.
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said in a statement issued Monday that “neither the President nor the Vice President were ever briefed on any intelligence alleged by the New York Times in its reporting yesterday.” The director said reporting from the Times and others that Trump had been briefed on the bounties was “inaccurate,” but he did not dispute the reporting on the intelligence itself.
Ric Grennell, who served as Trump’s acting director of national intelligence this past spring, tweeted Saturday that he “never heard this” in response to a Democratic congressman’s questions about the allegation and accused the congressman of politicizing intelligence.
The press secretary argued Monday that the intelligence community receives “thousands of reports a day,” she but claimed they would not be elevated to the president until verified.
Still, she announced that in response to an outcry for more information from Democrats and Republicans in Congress, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had extended an invitation to a bipartisan group of lawmakers and that a briefing at the White House was taking place as she spoke, though that briefing apparently was limited to Republicans and a briefing for Democratic lawmakers had not yet been scheduled.
Asked why congressional leaders were being briefed on an issue the president had not been, McEnany replied that “this has been and answered, the president is briefed on verified intelligence.”
Washington (CNN)White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany is defending President Donald Trump’s recent use of the term “kung flu” to refer to the coronavirus at a rally over the weekend, insisting that it isn’t racist.
Asked why Trump has used racist phrases, including “kung flu”, McEnany said Monday: “The President doesn’t. What the President does do is point to the fact that the origin of the virus is China. It’s a fair thing to point out(.)”
Pressed by CBS reporter Weijia Jiang about the use of the term, McEnany insisted during Monday’s press briefing that the use of the phrase was based on Trump’s push to link the virus “to its place of origin.”
The use of the term “kung flu” in the White House was first made public when CBS’ Jiang, an Asian American, reported in March that “a White House official referred to coronavirus as the ‘kung flu’ to my face.”
At the time, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said the term was “highly offensive.”
“I don’t know how these conversations go, and that’s highly offensive so you should tell us who it is, I’d like to know who it is,” Conway told reporters. Reporters did not give Conway a name.
Asked Monday if the President’s use of the term was “highly offensive” as Conway said, McEnany replied: “The President does not believe that it’s offensive to note that this virus came from China (.)”
The press secretary also brushed off concerns that Asian Americans are offended by the use of the phrase and that it would lead to more discrimination.
“The President has said very clearly: It’s important that we totally protect our Asian community in the US and all around the world. They’re amazing people and the spreading of the virus is not their fault in any way, shape or form,” McEnany said. “So, it’s not a discussion about Asian Americans, who the President values and prizes as citizens of this great country. It is an indictment of China for letting this virus get here.”
Asked if Trump regrets using the term, McEnany said Trump “never regrets putting the onus back on China, pointing out that China is responsible for this and in the process standing up for US troops who are being blamed by China in a campaign of misinformation.”
McEnany also tried to equate the media’s initial association of the virus with China, in terms such as the “Wuhan coronavirus” and the “Chinese coronavirus”, to Trump’s use of “kung flu.” But, as CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pointed out in the briefing, major news organizations have not used the term “kung flu” to refer to the virus.
Trump first referred to Covid-19 as the “Chinese virus” and the “China virus” earlier this spring, but after garnering criticism, he said he would back off of his use of the term.
And a day before backing off the term, the President tweeted out that the spread of the coronavirus was not the fault of Asian Americans — a group that had been the target of a growing number of racist and xenophobic attacks related to the virus.
“Look, everyone knows it came out of China, but I decided we shouldn’t make any more of a big deal out of it,” Trump told Fox News in March. “I think I’ve made a big deal. I think people understand it.”
The President said at the time that he didn’t regret using the terms to describe the virus and defended his past adoption of the terms by referencing other infectious diseases that are named after where they originate.
But over the last few weeks, Trump has returned back to labeling Covid-19 in a way that associates the virus with China in increasingly harsh terms — calling coronavirus the plague coming into the US from China, then “the Chinese plague,” and, most recently, the “kung flu.”
“It’s a disease, without question, has more names than any disease in history, ” Trump said in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during his first rally since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. “I can name ‘kung flu,’ I can name 19 different versions of name. Many call it a virus, which it is. Many call it a flu. What difference? I think we have 19, 20 different versions of the name.”
Joe Biden’s claim that President Trump will try to steal the November election is “ridiculous,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Thursday.
“I think that’s a ridiculous proposition. This president is looking forward to November,” McEnany told “America’s Newsroom.”
“This president is hard at work for the American people. Leave it to Democrats to go out and grandstand and level these conspiracy theories.”
SPIKE LEE MOCKS TRUMP, SAYS VOTERS MUST GO ‘HELL NO TO AGENT ORANGE’ OR ‘WORLD IS IN PERIL’
Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, used an appearance on a late-night comedy show Wednesday to address a popular topic of speculation among Democrats: Would President Trump peacefully give up power if he loses November’s election?
If Trump doesn’t, Biden told host Trevor Noah of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” then he’s “absolutely convinced” the U.S. military would step in to assure a transition to a new president.
“I promise you,” Biden said. “I am absolutely convinced they will escort him from the White House with great dispatch.”
Biden’s confidence may have been bolstered in recent days by the number of military figures who’ve spoken out publicly against the president after peaceful protesters were forcefully removed from the Lafayette Square area, near the White House, to clear a path so Trump and his entourage could safely walk to nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church, which was partially damaged during the unrest over the death of George Floyd.
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McEnany also said that Trump takes “personal offense” to military generals’ names being removed from bases. After some high-profile generals floated the idea of renaming Army bases named after Confederate generals, Trump said that his administration would “not even consider” such legislation.
“He takes it personally offensive the notion that the men who deployed to World War II, to World War I, to Korea, to all across the world, to Vietnam, the last bit of the United States many of these men saw were these forts and to somehow imply these forts were racist installations and that’s the last thing they saw as they left, many of whom lost their lives overseas, the president will not stand for that,” McEnany said.
“The president will respect this because these forts and these names are associated with the heroes within them, not the name on the fort,” McEnany said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany at Friday’s press briefing:
MCENANY: I also find it interesting if we want to start talking about the fabrication of crimes we can litigate that case pretty publicly with James Clapper who said what President Trump did with Russia pales–that Watergate pales in comparison we can talk about lying and saying President Trump was working on behalf of the Russians. We can talk about Hakeem Jeffries lying and saying the President was a Russian asset. We can talk about shifts saying there was ample evidence of collusion in plain sight when in fact there was not.
We can talk about Mark Warner saying there is enormous amounts of evidence of collusion. We can talk about a CNN historian who said there was a smell of treason in the Trump Russia probe when in fact for three years you all talked about collusion and there was none and it was a huge injustice not just to this administration but to the American people who deserve truth not the alleging of absolutely false allegations against this President.