White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany had to deal with what she called "absolutely absurd" questions at Monday's press briefing. Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker actually uttered these silly words as he discussed the criticism of people ripping down statues in public places: "Does President Trump believe that it was a good thing that the South lost the Civil War?”
Twitchy noted Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller said "What a waste of a briefing room seat." Benjamin Weingarten of the Federalist tweeted "Another excellent in-kind campaign contribution to @TeamTrump from the Democrat comms arm known as the media."
Dan Bongino tweeted over the NewsBusters Twitter video: "Moron of the week award goes to.....RYAN LIZZA. And it’s only Monday!"
RYAN LIZZA: Does President Trump believe that it was a good thing that the South lost the Civil War? And two, does he believe in NASCAR's example and banning the Confederate flag at his own events?
KAYLEIGH McENANY: Your first question is absolutely absurd. He's proud of the United States of America.
At the end of the briefing, a reporter pushed on the New York Times hit piece claiming President Trump was briefed on the Russians telling Afghan militants they would pay a bounty for dead American soldiers. McEnany offered a litany of Fake News the Times has published and has had to correct, mostly pushing a "Russia hoax" of collusion. They never mustered the evidence to back their conspiracy theorizing.
McENANY: The president is briefed on verified intelligence and again I would point you back to the absolutely responsible decision at The New York Times to falsely report that he was briefed on something that he in fact was not briefed on. And I really think that it’s time for The New York Times to step back and ask themselves why they’ve been wrong -- so wrong, so often.
The New York Times falsely claimed Paul Manafort asked for polling data to be passed along to [Russian merchant] Oleg Deripaska before having to issue a correction. In June of 2017 the New York Times falsely wrote all 17 intel agencies had agreed on Russian interference before having to issue a correction, that it was only four agencies. And in 2017, in February of that year, New York Times published a story claiming that Trump campaign aides had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence, which even James Comey had said was almost entirely wrong!
...The New York Times published a column in March of 2019 by a former Times executive editor [Max Frankel] that asserted the Trump campaign and Russia had an “overarching deal: the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy.”
That’s what we call the Russia hoax, which was investigated for three years with taxpayer dollars before ultimately getting an exoneration in the Mueller report. It is inexcusable the failed Russia reporting of The New York Times and I think it's time that The New York Times and also The Washington Post hand back their Pulitzers.
And with that, she turned and walked away.
