She became a paid contributor on CNN, feeding the outrage machine and the concept of cable news as combat sport. Networks were struggling to find eloquent champions of the Trump cause but she fitted the bill. In an interview with the New York Times, he recalled telling her “Donald Trump is going to be your nominee,” adding that if “a smart, young, blond Harvard graduate” wanted “to get on television and have a career as a political pundit, you would be wise to be an early backer”.

Huckabee told the New York Times last month: “I think one of the reasons that Kayleigh went on to law school was because she didn’t see she was going to have an on-air opportunity at Fox any time soon.”īut in 2015, McEnany received some intriguing career advice over cocktails from Michael Marcantonio, a fellow summer associate at a law firm and a Democrat. Eventually she decided to become a student again, first at the University of Miami School of Law, then transferring to Harvard. McEnany wanted a job in front of the camera but couldn’t get a break. In 2012, she wrote a tweet about Barack Obama, the country’s first black president, that has come back to haunt her: “How I Met Your Brother – Never mind, forgot he’s still in that hut in Kenya. She moved to Washington to study at Georgetown, took an exchange year at Oxford to study politics and served an internship in the Bush White House.Īfter graduating in 2010, she worked for three years as a production assistant at Fox News for Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and father of Sarah Sanders, Trump’s second press secretary. She attended the Academy of the Holy Names Catholic high school in Tampa and found time to volunteer for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004. The eldest child of a roofing contractor, McEnany is from Plant City, Florida, which she describes as “the world’s strawberry capital”. They say she has abandoned her religious principles to normalise a president widely condemned as a misogynist and racist. They characterise her as an opportunist motivated by fame and power rather than any ideological faith. She is a completely different person Anonymous TV punditīut to critics, McEnany is a Trump apologist trying to explain the inexplicable and excuse the inexcusable. Read or listen to her words prior to her decision to jump on the Trump train.

“Kayleigh McEnany: beautiful, Christian, conservative … designed by nature to enrage MSNBC viewers,” tweeted Ann Coulter, a rightwing author and commentator, referring to the liberal-leaning network whose hosts often eviscerate the president. McEnany is from what the president likes to call “central casting”: a polished performer, devout Christian and devout Trumpian.

The TV president now has a TV emissary, a spokesperson who sometimes takes her eyes off the reporters in the room and looks directly into the camera. It was a classic piece of “whataboutism” as practised by pundits on cable news. Reporters wore surprised and stony faces, then relaxed into wry smiles. “I’ll leave you with those questions,” she said, “and maybe you’ll have some answers in a few days.”Īnd with a triumphant smile she stepped away from the lectern, ignoring shouted questions. Consulting her briefing book, she reeled off a list of outlets and articles she said had downplayed the threat. “I guess I would turn the question back on the media, and ask similar questions,” McEnany said on Wednesday.

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