Kayleigh McEnany, who served as former President Donald Trump’s White House fourth White House press secretary, claimed in front of a crowd on Sunday, June 13, that she has “never lied.”
Although the conservative commentator may not have made as many deceptive statements as the president she served under, as some estimates have put the number of misleading statements made by Donald Trump during his tenure at more that 30,000, McEnany did tell mistruths during her time as press secretary, including some statements classified by Politifact as “mostly false,” “false,” or “pants on fire.”
But in front of a crowd at Young Women’s Leadership Summit for the quasi-fascist group Turning Point USA on Sunday, McEnany presented herself as an honest and principled woman of faith.
“As a woman of faith, as a mother of baby Blake, as a person who meticulously prepared at some of the world’s hardest institutions, I never lied. I sourced my information, but that will never stop the press from calling you a liar,” McEnany said as her words were met by applause.
However, the nature of McEnany’s profession as press secretary means there’s a well-kept record of all of the less-than-truthful statement she made between April 2020 and January 2021 while she served in the role.
Last September, McEnany claimed Trump “never downplayed” the coronavirus, although according to CNN, Trump had claimed at least 30 times prior prior that month that the virus would just “disappear” or vanish, even as daily case numbers continued to climb.
McEnany’s comments also came after Trump admitted in a recording released by journalist Bob Woodward that when it came to the virus, he “wanted to always play it down.”
That statement wasn’t the last time McEnany lied in order to defend Trump. In November, she said “more than a million” people had attended a rally for the president, even though the crowd appeared to be made up of only a few thousand, and the area could only physically hold 135,000 people.
After Trump encouraged voters to try to vote twice in North Carolina to test out the mail-in ballot system, a felony under state law, McEnany rushed to his defense, claiming, “The president does not condone unlawful voting.”
While McEnany claimed that no tear gas had been used on Black Lives Matter protesters at Lafayette Square last summer, a report by the U.S. Interior Department’s inspector general found that tear gas was used by police on protesters leaving the area.
In May 2020, McEnany claimed that the probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller ended in a “complete and total exoneration” of Trump, despite the fact that Mueller himself had stated just the opposite.
Mueller’s report found that while it “does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
McEnany, now a Fox News host on the network show “Outnumbered,” tweeted as outlets began to cover her claim about not lying, “Haters will hate!”
