Kayleigh McEnany Returns to Air After Maternity Leave, Scores Right Off the Bat with 1 Question for Biden WH
She’s gone from dealing with the infants of the White House press corps to raising another infant of her own, but Kayleigh McEnany hasn’t lost a step.
The former White House press secretary made her first return to Fox News’ “Outnumbered” on Tuesday to a warm welcome from her co-hosts and a message for new mothers everywhere.
But she wasted no time in getting back into the news of the day — coming out right off the bat with a pointed question for the woman who now has her old spot at the White House podium.
McEnany, who is known for her Christian faith and love of family, celebrated her return to the “Outnumbered” set with some advice for women nursing young children:
Even if the experience seems like drudgery, savor it for the blessing it is.
What a joy to celebrate Baby Nash today on @OutnumberedFNC w/ my amazing @FoxNews family – @HARRISFAULKNER, @EmilyCompagno, @ainsleyearhardt & @BillHemmer ! pic.twitter.com/gfKLEmz3IG
— Kayleigh McEnany (@kayleighmcenany) February 7, 2023
“I just want to say one thing. … It’s so easy as a mom to get into the habit of diaper, bottle, swaddle,” she said. “It’s a routine you do every three hours. Diaper, bottle, swaddle. And you can lose the moment.
“And so, all those young moms out there, take a beat, take a moment, take it in.
“And I did this so much better with my second child than with my first, just enjoying the moment. You don’t need to stress.
“Diaper, bottle, swaddles get done, but those moments can pass you by.”
The social media response to McEnany’s return was overwhelmingly positive, with this one summing it up pretty well.
I watched today and so good to have you back. Your kids are adorable! What blessings!
— Beth Kloosterman (@BKloosterman) February 7, 2023
(Of course, there are more than a few cranks out there who will hate anything to do with former President Donald Trump, including a woman who just became a mother for the second time, and there were some boorish tweets that reflected that. But the poor we will always have with us.)
Even on her first day back, though, McEnany showed she’s just as sharply prepared as she was for her press briefings, when she regularly ran rings around the posers posing as journalists in the liberal media.
As the hosts discussed the Biden administration’s disgraceful bungling of the Chinese spy balloon that crossed the North American continent last week, McEnany turned the attention to Karine Jean-Pierre, the current White House press secretary who proves on a continuous basis that she is simply not up to the job.
Check it out here. McEnany’s part comes about the 1:25 mark:
“I have some gaps I’d love to have explained,” she said.
“First of all, the leaking against the Trump administration – three balloons in the Trump administration – denied by [Mike] Pompeo, denied by Mark Esper, denied by John Bolton, denied by many others, all defense officials that I’ve seen in the administration,” McEnany continued. “I never had a Chinese spy balloon tab on my binder, I can tell you that much, because we didn’t know about it. At least I certainly didn’t. So the leaking against the Trump administration was interesting.
“But the gap I want explained … The Pentagon, Jan. 28, says U.S. officials first detected the balloon and its payload on Jan. 28, this is before it crosses Alaska. Jan. 31, Karine Jean-Pierre at the White House says this, ‘He, the president, was briefed on this on Tuesday.’ That’s Jan. 31.
“Was the president of the United States not briefed on this for three days? Did he miss the opportunity to shoot it down over Alaska? A question for Karine Jean-Pierre at the briefing today.”
That’s actually a very good question.
As it turns out, the next official Jean-Pierre news briefing wasn’t until Wednesday, judging by the White House website where briefing transcripts are posted. And the Wednesday briefing was mostly dominated by questions about President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. The balloon questions that did come up didn’t address the gap McEnany referred to.
Reports by Biden-friendly outlets such as CNN and Politico back up McEnany’s point that American military officials knew about the Chinese balloon on Jan. 28 but Biden wasn’t informed of it until Jan. 31.
How is it, exactly, that the president is not informed that a surveillance aircraft from the United States’ most dangerous global rival has been spotted over U.S. territory on a slow-moving journey that is going to take it over the heartland of America?
During the Trump presidency, questions were common about how much Trump paid attention to intelligence briefings. An NBC News report from 2019 is a good example. Headline: “On Trump’s calendar, just 17 intelligence briefings in 85 days.”
Does anyone think for a second that the same establishment media would be ignoring an apparent lapse of three days between when the military learned of an encroachment into American airspace and the president learning about it?
It gets clearer every day that Karine Jean-Pierre, a woman of near-stupefying incompetence, simply is not capable of doing the job she’s getting paid for.
As McEnany made clear in her first day back on “Outnumbered,” the members of the White House press corps she used to deal with aren’t interested in doing theirs either.
New mothers can learn from her advice. Maybe the media could take a lesson, too.
It’s good to have her back.
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