On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany opened and closed the press briefing by savaging the liberal media for their behavior regarding on their hopes that a coronairus vaccine wouldn’t be available in 2020, their purposeful refusal to cover a Chinese spy cozying up to Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA), and waiting until after the presidential election to both cover and give credence to probes of Hunter Biden’s corrupt business dealings.
McEnany first addressed the liberal media’s wishes failing to come to fruition due to the overwhelming success of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative.
“The President promised a safe and effective vaccine in record time, and President Trump delivered. Earlier this year, we heard from several news outlets in so-called fact checks that President Trump would need ‘a miracle’ to be right. That was an NBC News article,” McEnany stated.
She then went on to add three more headlines before asserting that “[t]hese reports deserve their own fact-check” ruling of “false”:
We were told according to Healthline, “a vaccine will still take more than a year to develop.” USA Today warned us that “despite medical researchers’ progress, the vaccine was more than a year away.” And National Geographic even told us that achieving a vaccine within “a year to 18 months” would be absolutely unprecedented. These reports deserve their own fact-check: false. President Trump has not only been the optimist, hopeful to achieve a vaccine by years end, he has also been a leader. Through Operation Warp Speed, President Trump the businessman and the president as the innovator has succeeded. President Trump directed military logistics experts at the Department of Defense to partner with health experts at Health and Human Services to ensure prompt delivery of vaccines and equipment.
Surprisingly, the briefing proceeded without any real fanfare or fireworks in the Q&A portion with reporters behaving themselves and choosing not to go down the route colleagues like Jim Acosta, Peter Alexander, Brian Karem, Paula Reid, or April Ryan would normally go down. For the sake of the country, McEnany chose not to call on Acosta.
McEnany pivoted to her closing statement after an Iran question from One America News’s Chanel Rion, emphasizing that “[t]his President has isolated Iran and he has done it through four peace deals, four more than his predecessor, but it’s unfortunate that it doesn't get much coverage in the mainstream media.”
Speaking more broadly, McEnany cited the fact that there have been more than a few stories that the liberal media have ignored in cases of bias by omission.
McEnany then laid out the near-total blackout of Swalwell’s concern escapades with Chinese spy Fang Fang in contrast to his years of false claims about Trump-Russia collusion (click “expand”):
And last week, we found out Democrat Congressman Eric Swalwell was infiltrated by an alleged Chinese spy. This spy cozied up to Swalwell, raised funds for his 2014 campaign and even planted an intern in his office. And that relationship continued until the FBI briefed him in 2015 and that was very good reporting done by Axios. But after entangling with this spy for years, Swalwell hypocritically went on to be one of the lead instigators of the Russia collusion hoax and the impeachment sham. Swalwell wrote on this congressional web page: “President Trump and his team are directly and indirectly tied to Russia.” That was not true. He then said in September of 2020 that the President has a “compromised relationship with Russia.” Untrue. April of 2019, he said President Trump “certainly acts on Russia's behalf and acts like Russia's leader.” Not true. January 2019, Eric Swalwell said “it’s pretty clear President Donald Trump is an agent of Russia.” Not true. And Swalwell shamelessly claimed Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner had an eagerness and a willingness to work with the Russians during the 2016 election. Again, it was false. In 2019, he falsely claimed this yet again when inquired by inclusion of by a reporter.
And these baseless attacks were false yet covered breathlessly by the media. There was no coverage, however, of Swalwell being the one implicated, with not Russia but China. In fact, The New York Times website, as of this morning, had not one result for Eric Swalwell's ties to Chinese spies — not one result. And when the Swalwell story broke, guess how many minutes of coverage it got on ABC, NBC, MSNBC, and CBS? Zero. CNN devoted 3 minutes and 16 seconds to it. However, it was covered on Fox.
She tied this together with Hunter Biden’s life of corruption, placing on the screens on either side of her Hunter Biden-related headlines from The New York Times, Politico, and The Washington Post before and after the election:
Interesting pre-election and post-election coverage on the Hunter Biden scandal, which was covered at all by many outlets in the lead up to the election. In fact, on October 15, you had a New York Times headline that said “Trump said to be warned that he was being given Russian disinformation over Hunter Biden.” Now, December 10, just a few months later, New York Times headline: “Investigation of Hunter Biden is likely to hang over Biden as he takes office.” Washington Post, October 16, the headline read: “The truth behind the Hunter Biden non-scandal.” Now, you have The Washington Post headline that says this: “Hunter Biden tax probe examining Chinese builders deals.” Politico, October 19: “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinformation” — that’s favorite — “dozens of former Intel officials say.” False, yet again. December 2nd, now Politico reads: “Justice Department's interest in Hunter Biden covered more than taxes.” Really interesting turn of events and good for those who covered what was a story along and not Russia disinformation.”
As she left the room, Acosta screeched: “Isn’t it hypocritical to accuse others of disinformation when you spread it every day?”
Since this was a White House press briefing, there were no commercials. But to learn more about the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page, click here.
To see the relevant transcript from December 15's briefing, click “expand.”
White House Press Briefing
December 15, 2020
1:12 p.m. EasternKAYLEIGH MCENANY: The President promised a safe and effective vaccine in record time, and President Trump delivered. Earlier this year, we heard from several news outlets in so-called fact checks that President Trump would need “a miracle” to be right. That was an NBC News article. We were told according to Healthline, “a vaccine will still take more than a year to develop.” USA Today warned us that “despite medical researchers’ progress, the vaccine was more than a year away.” And National Geographic even told us that achieving a vaccine within “a year to 18 months" would be absolutely unprecedented. These reports deserve their own fact-check: false. President Trump has not only been the optimist, hopeful to achieve a vaccine by years end, he has also been a leader. Through Operation Warp Speed, President Trump the businessman and the president as the innovator has succeeded. President Trump directed military logistics experts at the Department of Defense to partner with health experts at Health and Human Services to ensure prompt delivery of vaccines and equipment.
(….)
1:31 p.m. Eastern
MCENANY: This President has isolated Iran and he has done it through four peace deals, four more than his predecessor. But it’s unfortunate that it doesn't get much coverage in the mainstream media. But I guess we shouldn’t be surprised cause in the last 24, 48 hours there's been a few stories that --- not got [sic] a ton of coverage in the mainstream media. As former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said, “bias is often found in stories the press does not cover.” And last week, we found out Democrat Congressman Eric Swalwell was infiltrated by an alleged Chinese spy. This spy cozied up to Swalwell, raised funds for his 2014 campaign and even planted an intern in his office. And that relationship continued until the FBI briefed him in 2015 and that was very good reporting done by Axios. But after entangling with this spy for years, Swalwell hypocritically went on to be one of the lead instigators of the Russia collusion hoax and the impeachment sham. Swalwell wrote on this congressional web page: “President Trump and his team are directly and indirectly tied to Russia.” That was not true. He then said in September of 2020 that the President has a “compromised relationship with Russia.” Untrue. April of 2019, he said President Trump “certainly acts on Russia's behalf and acts like Russia's leader.” Not true. January 2019, Eric Swalwell said “it’s pretty clear President Donald Trump is an agent of Russia.” Not true. And Swalwell shamelessly claimed Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner had an eagerness and a willingness to work with the Russians during the 2016 election. Again, it was false. In 2019, he falsely claimed this yet again when inquired by inclusion of by a reporter. And these baseless attacks were false yet covered breathlessly by the media. There was no coverage, however, of Swalwell being the one implicated, with not Russia but China. In fact, The New York Times website, as of this morning, had not one result for Eric Swalwell's ties to Chinese spies — not one result. And when the Swalwell story broke, guess how many minutes of coverage it got on ABC, NBC, MSNBC, and CBS? Zero. CNN devoted 3 minutes and 16 seconds to it. However, it was covered on Fox. Interesting pre-election and post-election coverage on the Hunter Biden scandal, which was covered at all by many outlets in the lead up to the election. In fact, on October 15, you had a New York Times headline that said “Trump said to be warned that he was being given Russian disinformation over Hunter Biden.” Now, December 10, just a few months later, New York Times headline: “Investigation of Hunter Biden is likely to hang over Biden as he takes office.” Washington Post, October 16, the headline read: “The truth behind the Hunter Biden non-scandal.” Now, you have The Washington Post headline that says this: “Hunter Biden tax probe examining Chinese builders deals.” Politico, October 19: “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinformation” — that’s favorite — “dozens of former Intel officials say.” False, yet again. December 2nd, now Politico reads: “Justice Department's interest in Hunter Biden covered more than taxes.” Really interesting turn of events and good for those who covered what was a story along and not Russia disinformation.”
JIM ACOSTA: Isn’t it hypocritical to accuse others of disinformation when you spread it everyday.
