First comes the statement. On Thursday, it was the case for reopening schools, setting out the dangers for students who fall behind in class work, and all delivered straight to the camera.
Then comes the invitation to reporters: “And with that, I’ll take questions.”
And finally the clash, as President Trump’s press secretary tells a roomful of reporters they have been asking the wrong questions. “I was asked probably 12 questions about the Confederate flag. This president is focused on action, and I’m a little dismayed that I didn’t receive one question on the deaths that we got in this country this weekend,” said Kayleigh McEnany this week.
Her combative style has frustrated journalists, but insiders say that she has added a new weapon to Trump’s arsenal as he fashions a communications team built in his own image for the bruising election campaign.
Multiple former and current members of staff, who asked not to be named in order to speak freely about working relationships, said she was doing exactly what the president wanted at the podium: speaking not just for Trump but for the base and the American people.
“She does that well because so many Americans are frustrated when they hear the questions and behavior of the press corps in that briefing room when they are asking absurd questions about how the president feels about the South losing the Civil War,” said a senior administration official.
“When you are getting clown show questions, to have someone up there who not only channels the president very well but channels how most Americans feel about that kind of journalism, she really is a breath of fresh air.”
But that is not her job, said Brian Karem, White House correspondent for Playboy.
“She represents the government; we represent the people asking questions of the government,” he said. “If we want to be critiqued, we’ll be critiqued by the audience. People will read us, or they won’t read us.”
Either way, she has brought the briefing room back to the center of the White House communications strategy since joining from the Trump reelection campaign in April. She appears two or three times per week for quick-fire sessions that sometimes last barely 15 minutes and, though rarely, as long as 30.
Briefings ended altogether last year during Sarah Sanders’s tenure in the job, replaced by occasional informal question-and-answer sessions as relations between officials and journalists frequently turned hostile. The room remained completely unused for the year when Stephanie Grisham held the role.
The difference is clear, according to a former White House official, who said each of Trump’s previous press secretaries had struggled with such a demanding role.
“They were never able to channel in a strategic way what the president was trying to say to the American people. Sean Spicer never really understood it because he came from the party. Sarah was able to learn it but got worn out. Stephanie was a failure,” he said.
“But Kayleigh has taken it to another level.”
Insiders say she has a close understanding with the president, the result of frequent access — either by telephone or in the Oval Office. And she has built a solid relationship with Hope Hicks, a longtime Trump aide who returned to the White House in March, and who, at one time, was overseeing much of the messaging around the COVID-19 response.
That meant Hicks would work out when and where to deliver the message, said one insider, while McEnany focused on delivery and managing the day-to-day demands.
And it meant, according to deputy press secretary Judd Deere, not backing down from ensuring people knew the president was on their side. “Kayleigh is a skilled, savvy communicator who delivers policy positions while vocally defending President Trump against biased, negative media coverage — which she is not afraid to expose when journalists attempt to distort the record,” he said.
Insiders say the president has been particularly impressed with her ability to punch back not just with emotion but the sort of deep preparation that her time at Harvard Law School would have demanded.
“She has the goods on every reporter on the room, anticipating the questions before they come,” said a senior conservative communications strategist.
But Karem said coronavirus restrictions and social distancing had given McEnany a temporary advantage. She had yet to contend with the maelstrom of a packed briefing room with dozens of reporters working together to home in on a single issue.
“There would be 75 or 85 people doing it,” he said.
“Now there’s 14. You can’t follow up on one another, and you can’t hit all the issues.”
