Press Briefing by Kayleigh McEnany; May 12, 2020

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PRESS BRIEFINGS

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
HEALTHCARE

Issued on: May 12, 2020

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
2:17 P.M. EDT

MS. MCENANY: Hello, everyone. I want to highlight three critical aspects of President Trump’s response to the coronavirus that have exceeded the media’s expectations and should inspire confidence in every American across this country. Rest assured the Trump administration is working tirelessly to defeat the invisible enemy.

{snip}

Q It has been a while since we’ve seen Dr. Birx, though, for example. I mean, she is the coordinator of the Coronavirus Task Force. When might we see her and be able to get an update from her and be able to ask questions of her?

MS. MCENANY: Yeah, again, you know, I don’t know when in this capacity you will see her, but I talk to Dr. Birx regularly. In fact, I talked to her just before I came out here because I had some questions about some funny numbers I heard from Senator Elizabeth Warren, and she helped me to correct those numbers, which I’d like to correct here, because I think it’s unfair to the American people to give inflated case numbers and mortality numbers because it leads to those same Americans making the decision to not get a mammogram, to not have the cancer screenings they need. So I’d like to just reveal to you some information Dr. Birx just shared with me.

Elizabeth Warren erroneously said there were 25,000 new cases today. In fact, there were less than 20,000. Senator Warren said there were 2,000 deaths. In fact, there have been less than 1,000. I spoke with Dr. Birx about that.

So I’d encourage our Democratic colleagues and all Americans to make sure we’re putting out their good information, because it does have consequences.

{snip}

Yes.

Q Thank you, Kayleigh. The President said on Monday that Florida has so much testing that testers are literally sitting around waiting for people and that there is a, quote, “great overcapacity.” Yet, the reality in the state is there are still widespread criticism, reports of not enough testing. And the Kaiser Family Foundation ranks Florida 24th in the country per capita when it comes to testing. So is the President being overly optimistic about the situation in Florida?

MS. MCENANY: Not in the slightest. I was actually in the Oval Office when that discussion transpired and the Governor of Florida, Governor DeSantis — who’s doing a phenomenal job — talked about that there were — there was over-testing ability at these sites. So there were extra tests. There wasn’t enough demand. There weren’t people showing up to use them all.

He said that that had happened around some sites in the state. He saw it firsthand. He’s the governor of Florida — and that’s a good thing — and we’re able to fulfill Governor DeSantis’s plan in full that he has laid out as necessary to reopening the state of Florida, which happens to be my great home state.

Yes.

Q But overall, the data does not support that, Kayleigh. So is the President just listening to the governor or is he looking at the data?

MS. MCENANY: Oh, he’s looking at the data. As I noted to you, Admiral Giroir has a chart of every single governor’s plan and has said we will fulfill every single governor’s plan. Governor DeSantis was reporting what he had seen at distinct facilities that are drive-through testing sites.

{snip}

Yep. Chanel?

Q Thank you. With the release of the transcripts related to Adam Schiff’s Russia probe this week, do you have — is there any information you can share with us as to what the DOJ has shared with the White House on whether it is investigating Obama administration officials on this matter?

MS. MCENANY: So I don’t have any updates on that front because that’s currently a DOJ matter. But you did refer to transcripts, and I do think it’s an important moment to talk about what was in some of the transcripts that were released prior to today, so not the specific ones that you’re asking about.

But we learned from newly released transcripts a few things: We learned that what some Obama officials were saying publicly was much different than what they were saying privately. James Clapper was out there saying that he had evidence that this was worse than Watergate when, in fact, a few weeks later he was saying privately, “I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting [or] conspiring with Russia.”

Samantha Power said, “I am not in possession of anything — I am not in possession and didn’t read or [any] absorb any information that came” out of the intelligence community, suggesting collusion. Ambassador Rice: “I don’t recall…intelligence or evidence to that effect.” Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch: “I can’t say that — [if] it existed or not. I don’t recall that being briefed up to me.”

So it rings the question — it brings the question to light: Why then did we have many years of investigating collusion that these Obama administration officials — never existed, they never saw any evidence of, but for three years the American people were dragged through the mud and told that their choice for the President of the United States might have been a Russian asset based on no evidence of all — at all?

This President was exonerated by the Mueller reports, and there are some real questions for these individuals who are saying one thing publicly and another thing privately.

Thank you so much. I think I got to all of you, and we’ll be back soon.

END
2:41 P.M. EDT