New White House press secretary comes under fire for her misleading remarks

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Replacing Stephanie Grisham, Kayleigh McEnany was appointed as the fourth White House press secretary of the Trump’s administration.
• Her appointment came under huge fire due to her various misleading and derogatory remarks.
• She was mainly under scrutiny for her misinformed statements about the coronavirus and her racist sentiments toward former President Barack Obama.

Upon her appointment as the fourth press secretary of President Donald Trump, Kayleigh McEnany was scrutinized over her past remarkable pronouncements — spreading of fake news on coronavirus, misinformation against former President Barack Obama and other racist comments, among many others.

CNN first reported on Tuesday that McEnany will replace Stephanie Grisham as Trump’s press secretary. The new press secretary has been constantly reported for her incorrect claims about the COVID-19 crisis.

In late February, Trump repeatedly downplayed the impact of the virus and McEnany then voiced out the president’s thoughts on Trish Regan’s since-canceled Fox Business show.

“We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here… Isn’t it refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama?” McEnany said at the time.

The new spokesperson later defended her comments, arguing she was referring to the travel ban the president had implemented.

McEnany then again got interviewed on Fox Business two weeks after, where she stated that Trump will proceed with his scheduled rallies despite the advisory from Dr. Anthony Fauci to refrain from holding large public events. She even insisted, “The president is the best authority on this issue.”

On March 12, McEnany claimed that over 1 million COVID-19 tests were already distributed across the country. The following day, however, only 10,000 people had been tested nationwide as estimated by the COVID Tracking Project.

Also sometime in March, she wrongly suggested that the administration did not cut the pandemic response team — contrary to the Snopes’ investigation that the White House had dissolved the “supposedly response team.”

Twitter verse also brought back McEnany’s earlier comments regarding the validity of former President Obama’s birth certificate. She was also under scrutiny in 2017 for claiming that Obama went golfing even after learning that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl got killed by terrorists.

Pearl was abducted and killed in 2002, and Obama back then was still a state senator and George W. Bush was the president.

On top of these criticisms, McEnany was also said to be allegedly posting racist remarks and right-wing conspiracy theories on a blog which is now defunct.

In August 2016, Media Matters reported that McEnany mentioned that the Confederate flag has come to symbolize “Southern pride.” In that same month, she also tried to defend Trump’s characterization of Obama being the “founder of ISIS.”

Source: AOL.com