In Kayleigh McEnany, President Trump has finally found a skilled spokes-partner

After 1,173 days in office and three now-departed spokesmen, it appears President Donald Trump has found his preferred White House press secretary in Kayleigh McEnany — and just in time for a rugged fall election campaign.

McEnany, a 32-year-old author, Harvard Law grad and GOP advocate from Tampa who has quickly risen from partisan TV pundit to spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee to the Trump reelection campaign and since April, to White House press secretary.

Naming her was one of Mark Meadows’ first decisions as Trump’s fourth chief of staff. She seems a good fit for this president.

Speaking from personal experience, any press secretary job can be tricky, especially for a commander in chief whose words — or tweets — fly around the world at the speed of electrons. And these hasty missives often seem to delight in offending or shocking someone or several someones abroad and, especially in the Washington swamp that Trump was elected to drain.

Traditional press secretaries have often struggled to satisfy conflicting job priorities. There’s a demanding, self-proclaimed watchdog media with deadlines and questions — some relevant, some trivial, many hostile — about the most powerful officeholder in the world. And there are the expectations and demands of that same elected leader to have the most positive image possible presented to the world, especially in election years, as if the press secretary could control that crowd.

Whether on NBC or Pennsylvania Avenue, Trump has considered himself executive producer of his show. In many respects, he is actually the most accessible of modern presidents. You may not like what emerges from that frequent access, but there’s an awful lot of it in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room and moving to and from airplanes.

With or without an active press secretary, Trump has been very successful with almost continuously dominating news cycles, though not always with positive effects on his plans, policies and poll performances. His current slide in the polls, a repeat of candidate Trump’s summer fade in the 2016 campaign, seems to bother him. Only two elected presidents in modern times have lost bids for a second term. They too had sour economies, but not a pandemic.

But McEnany is not bothered or conflicted about the job demands of Trump press secretary. No need to court, coddle or assuage a hostile White House press corps. Her one and only job is to defend Trump and propound his presidency. And she’s doing a remarkably effective job of playing defense and offense, often both simultaneously. That is not easy.

Many media briefings in this administration’s earlier days, usually carried on cable TV, were basically shooting galleries. Aggressive journalistic questioning should be the norm. But fueled by Trump’s unexpected upset of the first female president-in-waiting and his ensuing animosity toward the media as the “enemy of the people,” briefing questions were openly hostile, argumentative, even confrontational.

A few reporters sought — and got — fame or notoriety by virtue-signaling to liberals their opposition to Trump’s presidency through matching the kind of nontraditional, even rude behavior of the president they were allegedly covering. For a time, Trump simply canceled the daily briefings. In fact, McEnany’s predecessor, Stephanie Grisham, held not one briefing during her entire tenure.

Only 112 days into her assignment, McEnany appears eager for the half-hour briefing frays every few days. She’s got a message to deliver, always in control, organized and supportive of Trump, even in the face of contrary facts. And she seems prepared for virtually any query. You never hear, “I’ll get back to you on that.”

“Hello, everyone,” she began the other day before taking questions. “The first duty of government is to protect the safety of our citizens…. For 55 days in Portland, Oregon, we’ve seen lawlessness, anarchy and destruction that threatens peace in our streets and the safety of our fellow American citizens and the safety of our brave law enforcement officers.”

And she launched into a concise description of Trump’s actions, protesters’ violence and Democrats’ malfeasance enhanced by a video of the violence. “These are not the actions of so-called peaceful protesters, and the Trump administration will not stand by and allow anarchy in our streets. Law and order will prevail.”

In this you hear what will be a dominant Trump campaign theme the next three months.

McEnany moves briskly through question after question with clipped, documented replies, repeating her point and refusing to argue if a reporter dislikes an answer, just moving on authoritatively to the next raised hand.

Past colleagues say she’s meticulous in preparation. And it shows. McEnany seems to have at hand all necessary dates, legal statutes and quotations to document her responses while providing a sense of Trump’s thinking, then confidently admitting what she doesn’t know. “I was not part of that conversation.” Notably, McEnany does not offer to get the information either, as others might.

It’s a strategic no-nonsense, no-pleases-no-thank-yous communications package that mirrors Trump’s seemingly impromptu approach. In that sense, they are double-teaming the media. It does not satisfy everyone. But these days in this administration, it only needs to satisfy one person.

You can peruse the transcripts of McEnany’s 29 briefings so far here.

This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "In Kayleigh McEnany, President Trump has finally found a skilled spokes-partner."