Kayleigh McEnany

Kayleigh McEnany (born April 18, 1988) is an American conservative political commentator and author who served as the 33rd White House press secretary for the Trump administration from April 2020 to January 2021.

Early on in the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, she was a critic of Donald Trump, but over time became known as a staunch defender of Trump.

She worked for Trump's 2020 presidential campaign as National Press Secretary from 2019 to 2020 and again as Senior Advisor from October 2020 to January 2021. On April 7, 2020, she was appointed as White House Press Secretary in the Trump administration, a position she held until Joe Biden's inauguration as 46th president.

She supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. However, in early 2015, before becoming a Trump supporter, McEnany was highly critical of him, declaring on CNN and Fox Business that "Donald Trump has shown himself to be a showman" and it was "unfortunate" and "inauthentic" to call him a Republican. McEnany called his comments about Mexican immigrants "racist". According to Michael Marcantonio, a fellow summer associate at a law firm, she began supporting Trump after receiving his advice over cocktails.

When Trump was criticized by experts for suggesting at a press conference that the coronavirus could be treated with disinfectant injections, McEnany said that his remarks were taken out of context. Trump later said the suggestion was sarcastic, although there was no indication in his statement that he was making a joke.

In May 2020, McEnany defended Trump's false accusation that Joe Scarborough had a person murdered, offering no evidence in support of the accusation. The same month, McEnany defended claims that Trump made about the dangers of vote by mail, repeating his inaccurate claims that vote by mail has a "high propensity for voter fraud." McEnany herself has voted by mail 11 times in 10 years.

In June 2020, she defended the decision by the Trump administration to forcibly remove peaceful protestors using smoke canisters, pepper balls, riot shields, batons, officers on horseback and rubber bullets so that Trump could stage a photo op in front of St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square in Washington. She likened Trump's action to that of Winston Churchill walking the streets to survey bomb damage during World War II.

Following the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, Randall Lane, writing for Forbes, warned corporations against hiring McEnany or other people "who lied for Trump", stating that "Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie. We're going to scrutinize, double-check, investigate with the same skepticism we'd approach a Trump tweet. Want to ensure the world's biggest business media brand approaches you as a potential funnel of disinformation? Then hire away."