This week, a photographer captured an image in the White House meeting room that quickly caught the attention of the press corps: Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s file folder, in which she had carefully organized possible topics while faced journalists from the lectern.
Along with “golf”, “Barack Obama”, “BLM” and a number of entries related to the coronavirus, there was “Karl”. Apparently, it was a reference to Jonathan Karl, chief white house correspondent for ABC News who is completing a one-year term as president of the White House Correspondents Association.
What was pointed out is not entirely surprising: in a Washington Post Last week, Karl wrote that McEnany’s reports, the most visible part of his work, have turned into something akin to a campaign infomercial.
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“Denying reality and using the White House podium for purely political purposes is a violation of public confidence,” he wrote, adding that “they usually include opening and closing messages that are more like the monologues of a talk show. partisan politician than that of a public official instructions. “
As Karl said in an interview with Deadline on Friday, “There is no doubt that every White House press secretary puts his boss in the best light. They can rotate. They make the strongest case for the president’s policies, actions, and words. But this is different. This goes beyond that. “
He added: “This could be my 15th press secretary, so I have spoken to many of them. There is a significant difference, a very important difference, between a press secretary for a president and a press secretary for a political candidate or a political party. “
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McEnany was exactly that, having taken her job in April after serving as the national press secretary for President Donald Trump’s reelection bid. She entered the already familiar role for television audiences, having been one of her most unrelenting advocates, not only in the campaign, but in a previous role on the Republican National Committee and as a CNN commentator. And in contrast to her predecessor, Stephanie Grisham, who did not hold official briefings during her tenure, McEnany brought them back. Although they are not daily, they are scheduled approximately three times a week.
“I will never lie to you, you have my word on it,” he said in his first briefing on May 1.
Karl does not want to use the word “lie” since he says that “it implies an intention and a motivation”. But “she has certainly said things that were not objective.”
He cited an instance this week, when McEnany said the idea of tension between the president and Dr. Anthony Fauci “couldn’t be further from the truth.” He said it just hours after Dan Scavino, a long-time close aide to the president, tweeted a cartoon taunting Fauci. That was “after the president himself repeatedly criticized him,” Karl said. So Peter Navarro, the president’s chief business adviser, wrote a USA Today Opinion piece that attempted to undermine Fauci’s credibility.
Karl also pointed to an incident last week, when McEnany criticized the press for saying that Trump’s speech on Mount Rushmore contributed to the culture war. “So the president, less than 24 hours later, says, ‘This is a culture war.'”
“People have complained that the briefings are too political for as long as there has been,” Karl said. “But it’s about not being too political. It’s about being really almost purely political. ”
McEnany has not yet responded directly to Karl’s opinion pieces, and she did not immediately respond to DeadlineRequest for comments.
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The fact that Karl obtained his own entry in his archives reflects the extent to which the briefings have also become exercises in criticizing the media, not only for what journalists have written or broadcast, but for the types of questions what are done or not. covered.
Some criticism has been justified. At a briefing this week, McEnany was speaking on the need to reopen schools and said, “Science should not get in the way of this.” The simple quote was quickly retweeted. But in the rest of the quote, she insisted that “the science is very clear about it,” including a pediatric study that “the risk of critical illness from COVID is much lower for children than that of seasonal flu.” McEnany later wrote that being taken out of context was a “case study in a media bias.”
However, they spend few briefings where there is no attack on the media, often with McEnany well prepared to identify where he sees the media’s contradictions and inconsistencies, or even to attribute certain motives.
In May, when Trump asked state governors to allow churches to reopen “at this time,” McEnany faced questions from reporters about the president’s authority to override a state.
A little frustrated, she told reporters gathered, “Boy, it’s interesting to be in a room that desperately wants to see these churches and places of worship remain closed.”
Reuters’ Jeff Mason, former president of WHCA, opposed the observation.
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Karl points to another incident that occurred at the briefing on Thursday, when George Condon, a reporter for the National magazine, asked about Trump’s speech in the Rose Garden earlier in the week, a series of nearly an hour attacks on Joe Biden. Several reporters said it was unusual to have such a cheeky campaign rally type speech on the ground.
“Is there somewhere in the White House where you think politics is inappropriate, and where to draw the line?” Condon asked.
McEnany, however, became defensive and quickly noted that the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while on the job, exempts the President and Vice President.
But Condon said that was not his question. “However, the Hatch Act has nothing to do with this.”
McEnany replied: “His real problem was the fact that the President delivered a good and powerful speech from the Rose Garden.”
Karl said it was an example of how McEnany “is changing everything in a way to basically define it in a way that she believes will help the president politically.” In a situation like that, there is no information, there is no idea of the president’s thinking. It’s just playing politics and trying to undermine the credibility of the reporters who ask the questions, rather than trying to inform the reporters who ask the questions. “
Karl said McEnany has been accessible to reporters, who can go to his office that is halfway between the meeting room and the Oval Office. After his first briefing, he said he went with her and even told her that she did a good job. “She wasn’t commenting on the content of what she was saying, but she answered questions from all reporters, she seemed to have done all her homework and provided answers, but the briefings quickly turned into more of a press conference than an answer. ” questions from the press. “
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The briefings even have a routine: an opening monologue on something the White House wants to cover (this week has been violence in Democrat-led cities), followed by questions, and then wrapped in a kind of coda. She has struggled to have the last word, be it a quick hit in the media or a defense from her boss. On Thursday, for example, she defended Trump’s pandemic records against her predecessors, insisting that the president “did not pause the tests, the Obama-Biden administration did, and that was a shameful decision.”
Typically, briefings are 20 to 22 minutes long, and McEnany’s ability to navigate the press corps is a testament to his preparation, advocacy and diversion skills.
Karl said his concern is that this will become the norm for future administrations, but also that “you end up in a place where there is no reliable information.” As it stands now, he said, “I am really concerned about how … half the country doesn’t trust anything anyone says in this building, and the other half of the country hardly trusts the newspaper or the television news. And it is because all the information is seen as partisan, as political. It is as if there is no objective truth. That is not sustainable. “
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That confidence is especially important in moments of national crisis: a terrorist attack, a serious accident or, as is happening now, a pandemic.
The irony is that, as much as McEnany is trying to make the boss look good, Trump has lagged behind Biden in the polls, particularly when it comes to managing the coronavirus crisis. Some advisers are already suggesting other approaches. On Friday Kellyanne Conway suggested Fox and friends get Trump back to the late-night appearances he made in the spring.
Those briefings also sometimes turned into something akin to a Trump rally. Karl, who recently published Front row at the Trump showHe argues that this is not what the briefings were created for.
“All the press secretaries come out and are doing their best to make the boss look good,” said Karl. “But it’s not like an organized infomercial. They have to deal with uncomfortable questions and give uncomfortable truths. You can’t just stand there on the podium and make it up because it sounds better to the president. You have to deal with a set of facts, and you have a responsibility to present those facts accurately. “
