WASHINGTON — Kayleigh McEnany was a Harvard legislation pupil at a Manhattan rooftop cocktail occasion in the summertime of 2015 when a colleague w
WASHINGTON — Kayleigh McEnany was a Harvard legislation pupil at a Manhattan rooftop cocktail occasion in the summertime of 2015 when a colleague woke up her to the chance that was Donald J. Trump.
A fellow summer season affiliate on the white-shoe legislation agency Kirkland & Ellis, Michael Marcantonio, a Democrat, had requested her for her favorites within the brewing Republican presidential major, and Ms. McEnany, a Republican who as soon as had the Gmail deal with “RealReaganConservative,” dutifully rattled off the names of Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz. Then, Mr. Marcantonio recalled, he interrupted her with some recommendation.
“Donald Trump goes to be your nominee,” he stated, including that if “a wise, younger, blond Harvard graduate” wished “to get on tv and have a profession as a political pundit, you’ll be sensible to be an early backer.”
This month, after years of tv appearances, Twitter testimonials and marketing campaign work that date again nearly to that occasion, Ms. McEnany was named by the president to be his fourth White House press secretary. Mr. Marcantonio said he still got tongue-in-cheek texts from colleagues: “‘This is your fault, right?’”
Just two weeks into her new job, Ms. McEnany’s energetic spinning of the administration’s struggle against the coronavirus has earned her undying enmity on social media but some grudging respect for her sheer doggedness. Like her predecessor, Stephanie Grisham, Ms. McEnany has not held a news briefing, but her defense of her boss — and her castigations of the press — appear to be unperturbed by his shifting narratives, breaks from logic and flights of fantasy.
“I’m not trying to defend the messaging, but what I hope people can acknowledge is there’s very few people in either party who can accomplish what Kayleigh has accomplished in such a short time,” said Van Jones, a CNN commentator and liberal activist who mentored Ms. McEnany when she joined CNN. “People keep taking her lightly, and they keep regretting it.”
After Mr. Trump mused last week that disinfectants and ultraviolet light “inside the body” might treat the virus, Ms. McEnany had to work to keep up with Mr. Trump’s changing explanations for the comments.
On Friday, she said, “Leave it to the media to irresponsibly take President Trump out of context and run with negative headlines,” only to watch Mr. Trump say his comments were “sarcasm,” not misquotes.
“Taking a sarcastic comment and running with negative headlines is the definition of taking something out of context, so I believe those answers are very much in sync,” Ms. McEnany told reporters on Saturday. She then effected another shift: “Millions and millions of Americans tune in each day to hear directly from President Trump and appreciate his leadership, unprecedented coronavirus response and confident outlook for America’s future.”
Ms. McEnany, whose 32nd birthday on April 18 was noted on air by the Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, has spent virtually all her working life inside Trumpworld. Her time at Harvard overlapped with her star turn on cable in 2016, where she transformed herself from an obscure Republican opinion writer to a pro-Trump contributor on CNN.
But she was using racist language similar to Mr. Trump’s long before the formal launch of his political career — or hers. Eight years ago, a 24-year-old Ms. McEnany leapt at the Twitter hashtag #ObamaTVShows to supply “How I Met Your Brother — By no means thoughts, forgot he’s nonetheless in that hut in Kenya.”
Scottie Nell Hughes, one other Trump surrogate in the course of the 2016 marketing campaign who typically teamed up with Ms. McEnany on CNN, appeared to see that streak as a plus.
“The president desires to see a fighter,” stated Ms. Hughes, who now works at Russia Immediately, a Russian state TV outlet also referred to as RT.
Ms. McEnany declined to debate her position or background for the report, though she stated in a quick phone name, “I would like the reality about me and my character to be on the market.”
Ms. McEnany grew up in Tampa, Fla., the eldest baby of a profitable roofing contractor. A 2005 {photograph} in The Tampa Bay Instances documented an early encounter with community information, Ms. McEnany huddling as much as an ABC microphone with fellow cheerleaders from Academy of the Holy Names Catholic highschool. “We all know we’re part of one thing particular,” she stated within the accompanying article.
She graduated from Georgetown College’s overseas service college in 2010, entered the College of Miami Legislation College and transferred into Harvard from there, graduating in 2016. After school, Ms. McEnany labored for 3 years as a manufacturing assistant for Mike Huckabee, who had a present on Fox Information, whereas making an attempt to place herself as center-right pundit.
“She’s a meticulous researcher,” Mr. Huckabee stated in an interview. “She’s terribly ready.”
However Fox Information refused to present Ms. McEnany the on-air job she craved.
“I feel one of many causes that Kayleigh went on to legislation college was as a result of she didn’t see she was going to have an on-air alternative at Fox anytime quickly,” Mr. Huckabee stated.
Not lengthy after the 2015 rooftop dialog in New York, Ms. McEnany took a contributor slot at CNN. In her 2018 e book, “The New American Revolution,” Ms. McEnany attributed her pro-Trump epiphany to the “hostile advocacy of platitudes over well mannered dissent, dictatorial silencing over considerate engagement and censorship over free interchange” that she encountered in academia.
Ms. McEnany spent months defending Mr. Trump earlier than ever assembly him, stated Donna Brazile, a former Democratic Celebration chairwoman and CNN contributor. Ms. Brazile launched Ms. McEnany to Mr. Trump in 2016, buttonholing him earlier than a CNN city corridor.
“It was lightning in a bottle,” she recalled.
“Not often did Donald Trump give you any coverage, however Kayleigh one way or the other discovered how you can step in that hole and make him look like a critical candidate,” stated Ms. Brazile, now a Fox Information contributor.
In these days, Ms. McEnany acknowledged sometimes crossing the road in her faceoffs with Democrats. “Hello Donna, my household talked about that I acquired too heated in our dialogue. I simply wished to apologize and let you understand how a lot I respect you and luxuriate in your organization,” she wrote Ms. Brazile in an April 26, 2016, e mail. “You’re a veteran and a legend in politics.”
Jack Kingston, a former Republican congressman and conservative pundit, remembered Ms. McEnany as a inexperienced room workaholic, writing opinion items whereas she waited to go on the air, a tiny teacup canine tumbling out of her purse. “Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani acquired to be on ‘Hannity,’ and Kayleigh and I acquired the exhibits the place they stated, ‘In 1968 Donald Trump ran over a pet hamster,’” he stated. “She was a child, to a point, and she or he was punching again and getting punched and taking it and rolling with it.”
In 2017 Ms. McEnany married Sean Gilmartin, a baseball pitcher presently within the minor leagues as a part of the Tampa Bay Rays group.
And with Mr. Trump within the White Home, Ms. McEnany joined the Republican Nationwide Committee as nationwide spokeswoman, then joined the Trump marketing campaign in the same position.
“She defends the president and promotes the president like no one else. She’s additionally fearless,” stated Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the Trump 2020 marketing campaign. “It’s a loss for the marketing campaign, nevertheless it’s a achieve for the White Home — it’s all in the identical household.”
Mr. Trump’s blurring of these two features could make Ms. McEnany’s White Home position arduous to differentiate from her marketing campaign position.
“We won’t see ailments just like the coronavirus come right here, we won’t see terrorism come right here, and isn’t that refreshing when contrasting it with the terrible presidency of President Obama?” Ms. McEnany, in her marketing campaign position in late February, advised Fox Enterprise anchor Trish Regan, who has since been fired for dismissing coronavirus as a “scam.”
Ms. McEnany said on March 11: “The media’s best hope is for Donald Trump to suspend his rallies. We’re not going to cave to the media.”
As White House press secretary, Ms. McEnany continues to portray the president’s coronavirus response as “extraordinary.” On April 16, she tweeted the false declare that “Below President @realDonaldTrump’s management now we have rapidly developed essentially the most expansive and correct testing system on the planet.” No coordinated nationwide testing system exists.
Ms. McEnany has joined Mr. Trump in conflating the number of test kits distributed with the number of tests actually performed, a substantially lower number. She has used the larger, less meaningful numbers to chide journalists and falsely declare, in a Twitter post retweeted by the president, that putative Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden “lied.”
Final week, after Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, advised The Washington Submit, “There’s a chance that the assault of the virus on our nation subsequent winter will really be much more troublesome than the one we simply went by way of,” Ms. McEnany falsely claimed he was misquoted.
The C.D.C. director “was very clear in saying, look, we would have flu re-emerge within the fall,” she advised reporters. “All People must exit and get their flu photographs, that was the thrust of his feedback, however , depart it to the media to actually take these out of context.”
Mr. Redfield then contradicted her interpretation within the White Home coronavirus briefing on Wednesday. Ms. McEnany was not within the room.
Kitty Bennett contributed analysis.