Kayleigh McEnany's peculiar complaint about coverage of Biden's all-female press team
Category: News & Politics
Via: sister-mary-agnes-ample-bottom • 4 years ago • 29 commentsBy: Aaron Blake (MSN)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Kayleigh McEnany's peculiar complaint about coverage of Biden's all-female press team
From literally the day after President Trump was inaugurated, his White House press operation has been anything but a model of honesty and good faith.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Principal assistant press secretary Chad Gilmartin and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany walk back to the West Wing on Nov. 18. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
And now it appears ready to go out just as it came in.
Trump's communications team on Sunday took issue with a Washington Post report about President-elect Joe Biden's new all-female senior communications team. Its argument: We actually did it first.
Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany cried foul from her personal Twitter account Sunday night.
"President @realDonaldTrump already has an ALL FEMALE Senior White House Press Team," McEnany said. "So does @VP … So does @FLOTUS … So does @SecondLady … The completely DISCREDITED @washingtonpost once again reveals their blinding propagandist Fake News proclivities."
The message was promoted by others at the White House and self-styled conservative media watchdogs.
There are two problems with this.
The first is that, objectively, Biden's team will be more female. As plenty of people noted after McEnany tweeted what she did, Judd Deere carries the title of deputy assistant to Trump and deputy press secretary. Brian Morgenstern is also a deputy press secretary and deputy communications director. Biden's principal deputy press secretary will be Karine Jean-Pierre, while his deputy communications director will be another woman, Pili Tobar.
Reasonable people can disagree about whether those are technically "senior" roles. Deere for one seemed to agree that he's not in a senior role, retweeting McEnany's tweet and drafting his own version of the same complaint.
But the same is true when it comes to Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris's press team. Her top spokesperson will be Symone Sanders. That job is now filled by Devin O'Malley.
In other words, three of the seven jobs Biden filled Sunday have men serving in the equivalent roles in the Trump White House. Call it "senior" or anything else, the Biden White House's communications team will feature significantly more women.
The second problem, though, is that McEnany et al. are erecting a straw man. The headline McEnany featured in her tweet said merely that Biden had appointed an all-female senior communications team, which is true no matter how you define "senior." The headline doesn't reference a claim that this is in some way unprecedented or that Trump didn't do the same. Yet McEnany suggested that headline was somehow "fake news" that discredits The Post.
The Post report does include a reference along these lines: "It is the first time all of the top aides tasked with speaking on behalf of an administration and shaping its message will be female." Again, we can debate "top," just as we can debate "senior." But, again, three of the seven jobs that were just filled by women are now held by men. And those are unquestionably top jobs when it comes to "speaking on behalf of the administration"; Deere and Morgenstern do a large chunk of that work for the Trump White House, as reporters will attest.
The Trump White House has elevated women to the top communications jobs frequently. There is no questioning that. But this is a thoroughly odd parsing by the White House — almost as if it is looking for things to complain about.
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Bye, Felicia.
it will be interesting to see the next job this particular person ends up with.
She will run for Congress in some yahoo district, and win in a landslide.
Well...most every business has a latrine and someone to clean it, so there is one that fits her eligibility. And then there is the trash bins, and they need someone to empty them. Right? Then there are many more at that level that fits her caliber that she can opt for.
Speaking of cleaning latrines, there is always FoxNews.
She actually worked at Fox as a producer on Mike Huckabee's show. But now, Fox hosts are cutting her off mid-sentence for telling the same Trump whoppers and flapping the same tall Trump-stack of blank paper saying it contained the names of people who voted in some fraudulent way.
I hope not, but I wouldn't doubt it one bit.
I doubt seriously even Fox would not have her in any capacity. She is nothing but a mindless parrot that repeats anything and everything she hears. Her mouth can't be trusted in any way.
Mike Huckabee might find a job for her....
piece work maybe, he can't give her full time work ...
his toes?
Looking for every possibiliy to discredit Biden and his team, the Trumpistas use language nuance that is sufficiently sophisticated to go over the heads of most of Trump's sheep - any port in a storm I guess. After all, the sheep are still convinced that Trump won the election. LOL
Bleach blonde liar also can't count
She meant to say Trump did it with her first.
How petty. We have children in charge of the federal government.
The supposedly independent media createS fake news to bolster their cherished candidate and you blame the administration for pointing out the truth.
Makes perfect sense.
What are you talking about? It's customary for a President-elect to announce appointees and cabinet nominations prior to taking office. Biden's team announced his top press picks and they happen to be all women. BFD. It was Kayleigh WhatsHerNuts who made a thing out of it by tweeting that Trump was first to have an all women. It wasn't just a who gives a shit moment...she was actually wrong about what she tweeted, and the response by others on Twitter was swift, to say the least.
Not for much longer.
Well, you can only write so many hard hitting exposes on Biden’s socks, before the media needs to find another angle to do their job promoting joe Biden. Making up claims about his press staff is as about as meaningful as any other or work they do for him.
Jesus, Sean...why don't you go bitch to somebody who gives a shit?
No, it's actually kind of a weak sauce claim by the incoming administration, backed up by a compliant press. It's dishonest to act like the incoming administration is breaking some kind of glass ceiling and even more dishonest to imply the current White House wasn't putting women in leadership positions.
The only way the silly claim is true is if you also count VP communications (that's not really the White House) and the people immediately under the three bosses.
Yeah, especially since the word "deputy" appears in their titles and we know that they answer to someone else - women, as it turns out. Frankly, I'm having a hard time seeing how the deputy anything is a "senior" role.
Heck, you can play that game all the way down the chain of command to the interns. Where you stop is arbitrary, but apparently it most relies on how much virtue signaling you need to do. All you have to do is just decide to call someone "senior." The Daily Show has been doing that joke for years. Apparently the Biden people thought calling everybody "senior" was a real thing.
But that's easily dismissed because it doesn't mesh with the desired narrative.
What's the weak-sauce claim? From the article:
Sure it does. From the WaPo article:
I don't blame the women in positions of authority at the White House for basically saying, "Hey! We are right here!"
So you just did the same strawman thingy that the article speaks of and your own block quote proves it:
There was no claim about the entire Administration, JUST the press team.
That made no sense in the way that you seem to think it did. Sorry.
I can point it out to you, [deleted]
It's going to suck not being able to use the meme I have JUST for her anymore.