Donald Trump’s new press secretary Kayleigh McEnany just gave something away during her first briefing

| 7:30 pm EDT May 1, 2020
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Donald Trump is now on his fourth White House Press Secretary. The previous one never did hold a single press briefing. The latest one, Kayleigh McEnany, has been on the job for awhile but just now finally held her first press briefing today. In the process, she gave something away – but perhaps not what we were expecting.

Based on every single TV appearance she’s ever done over the years, and based on every single tweet she’s posted since she went to work for Donald Trump, we’ve had good reason to presume that Kayleigh McEnany is a complete idiot. But during her press briefing today, she handled herself fairly well. And by “fairly well” I mean that she told a lot of ridiculous lies in serious fashion, with a straight face, in a way that didn’t make it particularly easy for the reporters in the room to blow her up for it.

Of course the reporters were extraordinarily soft on her today. That’s not their fault. This was their first go-round with her. They don’t know how to break through her defenses yet. We’ll have to judge their performance based on how they approach her in future briefings – if she holds any future briefings.

But today we saw that Kayleigh McEnany is not necessarily the kind of idiot who’s going to get up there and make unforced errors that make it easy for the reporters in the room to crack her lies. Again, based on her years of past performances in other formats, we had good reason to believe she was a hapless idiot. Today she gave away that she might actually just be pretending to be an idiot for effect. It’s something to keep in mind as we work to defeat her pro-Trump lies going forward.

Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.