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mahatmakanejeeves

(56,910 posts)
Wed May 27, 2020, 07:26 AM May 2020

Press Briefing by Kayleigh McEnany; May 26, 2020

Trump is the victim here. It's Don Imus who's to blame.

PRESS BRIEFINGS

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
Issued on: May 26, 2020

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

2:11 P.M. EDT

MS. MCENANY: Hello, everyone. I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend. I have some brief announcements for you today — just that now we have 760 sites and retail locations in 45 states, plus the District of Columbia. CVS is planning to open an additional 650 sites. These are encouraging numbers. It’s, again, a testament to our private sector for all that they’ve done in partnering with the administration and helping to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Also skilled nursing facilities — there was an announcement that I just want to underscore that $4.9 billion in additional relief funds were distributed to nursing homes and other skilled nursing facilities, and these funds are provided under the CARES Act.

So just those two items for you this morning, and we’ll go ahead and we’ll start with questions.

{snip}

Q Kayleigh, the President tweeted — or retweeted something which seemed to be criticizing Joe Biden for wearing a mask over the weekend. Was that his intention? And if it was, why would he criticize that?

MS. MCENANY: I think — look, you know, the President is excited to see that Joe emerged from the basement. It is a bit peculiar though that, in his basement, right next to his wife, he’s not wearing a mask, but he’s wearing one outdoors when he’s socially distanced. So I think that there was a discrepancy there.

He’s not shaming anyone. As the President noted himself, he wore this mask in private at the Ford facility, and he said he’s open to it if the circumstance mandates it.

Q Isn’t the guidance to wear a mask when you’re outside though, not when you’re necessarily in your home?

MS. MCENANY: The guidance says it’s recommended but not required. So it’s the personal choice of the individual, but it didn’t strike him as a very data-driven decision in that particular incidence.

Yes, Peter.

Q Hi, Kayleigh. Thanks. If we could just do a little housekeeping. First, we know Katie Miller tweeted that she’s back at work today. Is the White House valet back at work? And has anybody else within the White House complex tested positive for the virus besides those two individuals that we learned about a couple weeks ago?

MS. MCENANY: So I don’t know about the valet. I haven’t inquired about that. No updates as to who’s tested positive or not; that’s not something I regularly keep tabs on. But Katie Miller is back at work. We’re very happy to see her recovered. I spoke to her yesterday. I haven’t seen her today. But she did have several negative test results before she reentered the building.

Q Would you get back to us and let us know if anybody else? People are worried about the President’s safety, the Vice President’s. Can you let us know that nobody else has tested positive in the two-plus weeks that have now passed since those cases?

MS. MCENANY: I can inquire about it, but it’s people’s personal medical decisions, so I’m not entirely sure that that would be given to me.

Q Okay. Let me follow up then, if I can. The President, in a tweet earlier today, said that he’s made governors look very good by getting them what he said was “unlimited testing.” That’s not true. You’ve said that it’s not even necessary. So why is the President saying that?

MS. MCENANY: He’s saying — what he means by that is that the governors requested a specific amount of testing to reopen, and he indeed has provided that. That’s —

Q So it’s not “unlimited testing,” you would agree.

MS. MCENANY: It’s what they asked for in phase one; it’s the full panoply of what every governor asked for that was given to him — given to them. And it’s 300- to 400,000 tests per day that we’re doing. That’s a really good number.

I did talk to Admiral Giroir before coming out here, and the metric that — if you’re to believe the WHO; I don’t particularly these days — but they say it’s — a good barometer of testing is 10 percent positivity or under. And Admiral Giroir shared with me that we’re nationally at 7.5 percent. So we’re in a pretty good spot.

Q Kayleigh, is Stephen Miller back? Is Stephen —

MS. MCENANY: Is Stephen Miller back? Yes. I just saw him in Outer Oval, so he is back and at work.

Q And he took — did he take some time away from the White House, though, for a while?

MS. MCENANY: He did. He did. He’s self-quarantined with his wife, but they’re both back at work and healthy and happy, and we’re very happy to see them around.

Q Glenn Fine, at the Pentagon — the top watchdog over at the Pentagon — he submitted his resignation today. Can you say if that was encouraged? Did anyone ask him? And can you talk about the importance about those internal watchdogs that are in our government agencies?

MS. MCENANY: So — you said it was Glenn Fine that was — that’s the first that I’m hearing about this.

But with regard to the other IGs, I would note that the President — it’s within his authority — his legal and executive authority — to appoint new IGs. And he said, I think last week at some point, that it’s within the decision-making process of each entity, at the State Department and each department, whether to keep their IG or not.

And I would note that President Obama has a precedent of firing IGs as well. And there were, in fact, 47 IGs that signed a letter claiming the Obama administration hindered their efforts. So this is not without precedent when it comes to IGs.

{snip}

Q Yes, has the President seen the letter that Lori Klausutis’s husband — widower — sent to Jack Dorsey, the Twitter CEO, saying that his tweets were “emotionally traumatic” for him and for his ex- — his wife’s family?

MS. MCENANY: I don’t know if he’s seen the letter, but I do know that our hearts are with Lori’s family at this time.

Q Why is the President making these unfounded allegations? I mean, this is — this is pretty nuts, isn’t it? The President is accusing somebody of possible murder? The family is pleading with the President to please stop unfounded conspiracy theories. Why is he doing it?

MS. MCENANY: Well, you know, I would note that the President said this morning that this is not an original Trump thought, and it is not. In fact, in 2003, on Don Imus’s show, it was Don Imus and Joe Scarborough that joked about killing an intern — joked and laughed about it. So that was, I’m sure, pretty hurtful to Lori’s family. And Joe Scarborough himself brought this up with Don Imus, and Joe Scarborough, himself, can answer it.

Q Nor was she an intern, though.

Q But he’s the President. He’s the President of the United States and he’s accusing somebody of possibly murder. I mean, this is different. He’s — he’s not a private citizen; he’s the President.

MS. MCENANY: Yeah, and Joe Scarborough — if we want to start talking about false accusations, we have quite a few we can go through about Mika asserting —

Q No, no, I’m asking about — I’m asking about the President’s —

MS. MCENANY: — Mika Brzezinski —

Q I’m asking about the President’s allegation here, of —

MS. MCENANY: And I’m replying to you and saying, this morning, as recently — I believe it was this morning or yesterday — Mika accused the President of being responsible for 100,000 deaths in this country. That’s incredibly irresponsible. They’ve dragged his family through the mud. They’ve made false accusations that I won’t go through — that I would not say from this podium — against the President of the United States. And they should be held to account for their falsehoods.

Joe Scarborough should be held to account for saying people will die by taking hydroxychloroquine. Never mind the millions of Americans and people across the world who take it for rheumatory [sic] arthritis and other reasons.

There are a litany of false headlines, like Mika —

Q Does that justify the President spreading a false conspiracy theory that suggests that —

MS. MCENANY: I would point you back to —

Q — he’s responsible for murder?

MS. MCENANY: I would point you back to Joe Scarborough who laughed and joked about this item on Don Imus’s show. It’s Joe Scarborough that has to answer these questions.

Steven.

Q So will he apologize and will he stop, Kayleigh?

MS. MCENANY: Steven.

Q Thank you. If I could, two questions. John Ratcliffe was sworn in as intelligence director today. Has the President decided what’s next for Ric Grenell in terms of an appointment?

{snip}

Q When Americans — when voters go to the polls in November, and they want to judge the President on his response to this pandemic, what is the number of dead Americans that they should tolerate as have — and where they can argue that, yes, he successfully defeated the pandemic?

MS. MCENANY: I think, you know, you’re asking the wrong question. The right question is where did —

Q Well, no, no —

MS. MCENANY: — where did the data —

Q — that’s the question I want to ask, Kayleigh. So please don’t tell me —

MS. MCENANY: Where did —

Q — whether I’m asking the right or wrong question.

MS. MCENANY: And I answered your question once, but if you ask it twice, it doesn’t make it any better of a question. So I’ll respond in kind. I’ve given you one answer, and I’ll continue to extrapolate upon that: that he always listened to the science. The President — when Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx said, “You need to shut down the economy,” that was hard for the President. You know, in a typical year 120,000 people die of suicide and drug overdose. That’s in a typical year.

And doctors have said, when you shut down an economy for an extended period of time, that number gets greater. People don’t show up for their cancer diagnoses. There are a litany of results when you close down an economy. But closing down the economy for this amount of time kept us far below the 2.2 million number.

As we start to reopen, we keep in mind the people who are missing their screening appointments, the people who are not — who are succumbing to suicide and drug overdose because of economic hardship. This President made the right choice. It was a delicate balance, and he did it exactly as he should, guided by data, and we are far below 2.2 million dead Americans because of the actions of President Trump.

Yamiche.

Q Hi. I have — I’m going to read something really quickly. Timothy Klausutis wrote, quote, “Conspiracy theorists, including most recently the President of the United States, continue to spread their vile and misinformation on the platform, disparaging the memory of my wife.” Why won’t the President give this widower peace, and stop tweeting about this conspiracy theory involving his wife? Why won’t — why can’t this widower get peace from the President?

MS. MCENANY: I’ve already asked and answered this question, and our hearts are —

Q You did not. You did not ask and answer this question.

MS. MCENANY: — our hearts are with — our hearts are with Lori. And I think I’ll — the onus is on Joe Scarborough to explain —

Q The onus is on the President. The widower is talking specifically about the President.

MS. MCENANY: — his interaction with Don Imus and his laughing on this very matter on Don Imus’s show.

Chanel.

Q But the widower — the widower —

Q Hey, Kayleigh. So, going back to the FISA Courts and the FISA warrants —

Q Excuse me, the widower is talking specifically about the President. Are you not going to answer that?

Q — with regards to ex-CIA chief, John Brennan: How far or how willing are you able to go forward and say that he lied to the FBI or obstructed justice in the process of discussing Russian collusion and the Trump family?

And on that note, we now have new information showing that Obama himself used foreign intelligence to actually request surveillance on the 5th and 26th floor of Trump Towers. So to what extent was John Brennan behind that? To what extent can you share with us what you know?

MS. MCENANY: Yeah, John Brennan, of all of the — I’ll call them bad actors, because indeed they were — of the Obama administration, John Brennan probably has the most to answer, because it was John Brennan who sat before Congress and said the Steele dossier — paid for by Hillary Clinton, paid for by the DNC — that that document played no part of the role in opening the Russia probe, when, in fact, we know it did; when, in fact, we know it was the impetus. And testified before a FISA Court for its truthfulness to spy on the Trump campaign.

So John Brennan, of all people, probably has more to answer. So too do Samantha Power and Susan Rice and these individuals who had admitted under oath that they, in fact, spoke to foreign leaders and representatives of foreign leaders during their transition, but yet somehow, during the Trump transition, that was uncalled for; what has been done all throughout history was uncalled for and meriting unmasking and meriting cornering General — Lieutenant General Michael Flynn.

All of these people have really legitimate questions to answer. I think we’re slowly getting to the bottom of this, but it’s a real travesty and really one of the biggest political scandals in modern history.

{snip}

Q Right. So after the lowering of the flags this past weekend, does the President have any other plans in the works to honor the victims of the virus? And —

MS. MCENANY: Yeah, I think he’s — oh, go ahead.

Q Sorry. And a larger question is: Does he see his role as mourner-in-chief, in some way, which would be the traditional role of President?

MS. MCENANY: Yeah, I think he takes that, that responsibility, very seriously. He said that this is the hardest part of his presidency — going through this pandemic. He says so many times that he thinks about many of his friends — some of his friends, I should say — who have perished because of this disease. It’s real to him. It’s personal to him. It’s why he says, you know, one death is too many. And he thinks about it all of the time.

So he does see his role as that — comforting the nation, but reopening the country, giving the country hope at this time as we look forward to going back to work and resuming our lives, although in a new reality with new CDC guidelines.

Q Any concrete actions in the works?

MS. MCENANY: I think lowering the flags is a great example. And when we have further announcements on that front, I will be sure to share those with you.

Yeah.

Q Thanks. So going back to the Klausutis — Klausutis family, I think is how you pronounce it — the Florida family: They have asked the President that — the widower has asked the President in that letter to stop talking about this and for Twitter to take down those tweets.

I just wanted to ask you: Is the President asking for someone, for law enforcement to reopen this cold case? Is that what he’s intending? Is he going to ask the DOJ to reopen something? What is he asking for when he talks about the cold case?

MS. MCENANY: Yeah, I don’t have any future announcements on the President’s action, but I would just refer everyone, for those of you who haven’t heard it, go back and listen to the Don Imus soundbite. It was very callous; it was very cruel. And I think laughing and joking about the death of an intern is really uncalled for, and that’s something we can all agree to.

Thank you all very much.

END

2:32 P.M. EDT
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