Joe Lockhart: Kayleigh McEnany has crossed a line [View all]
CNN
(CNN)Every single White House press secretary faces his or her own moment of truth on the job. Jerald terHorst, for example, resigned after just one month because he could not live with President Gerald Ford's decision to pardon his predecessor, President Richard Nixon.
Choosing when to take a stand, and what to reveal to the public are not always straightforward decisions. There are, for example, times when releasing the operational details of the military puts lives at risk. It begs the question: What's more important, telling the truth or protecting lives? Jody Powell faced that decision under Jimmy Carter and decided saving lives trumped telling the press the truth during the Iranian hostage crisis.
...snip...
Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany faced her moment of reckoning in the briefing room on Wednesday, when reporters confronted her about the recordings, released by veteran journalist Bob Woodward, in which President Trump acknowledged in early February that the coronavirus was airborne and deadlier than the flu, even as he publicly dismissed concerns about the virus and called it the Democrats' "new hoax." In March, Trump told Woodward that he intentionally downplayed the dangers of the virus, saying, "I always wanted to play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."
McEnany failed on an epic scale in her response. She did not provide context for Trump's statements. Instead, she perpetuated the lies even the President himself admitted to Woodward on tape.
= new reply since forum marked as read