Your Public Square Disclosing what is True, what is Real
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany - October 1, 2020
MS. MCENANY: - and various other issues.
Yes.
Q Will the President commit to participating in the next debate before the commission changes the rules?
MS. MCENANY: First, with regard to the commission rule changes: The President made clear his view on that yesterday, that he thinks the only way there's a fair debate is changing the moderator and a change in the Democrat nominee. He wants to debate. He plans on being at the debate, but he wants the rules to be fair and wants a fair exchange, and doesn't want rules that cover for a certain candidate's inability to perform well.
Yes.
Q Thank you, Kayleigh. Can you explain why it's appropriate for the President to be holding rallies this weekend in two areas that this White House has declared to be "red zones" in Wisconsin?
MS. MCENANY: Yeah, so the President believes that people have a First Amendment right to political speech. He is having a rally. People can choose whether or not to come.
Q But the governor has begged the White House to please not continue having events like this. Your own Coronavirus Task Force says this is an area that people need to be really careful in, double down on social distancing. So why is it right for the President to be coming in there and holding another rally or two rallies?
MS. MCENANY: Well, we - we employ measures to protect rally-goers.
Q Yeah, but you don't. I mean, we've all covered these rallies.
MS. MCENANY: We encourage mask wearing, hand sanitizing.
Q These people are shoved together. There are thousands of people standing close to each other, not wearing masks.
MS. MCENANY: Did you watch the Democrat nominee's rally yesterday? There was no social distancing there, so I assume you guys expressed the same line of questioning to the Democrats.
But what I would say is this: Is there really seems to be two standards of health in this country, one for Trump supporters and one for everyone else. You had 1,300 health experts literally sign a letter that said, "We do not condemn these gatherings..." - speaking of the protests that we all saw play out - "We do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health." So it's vital if you're protesting, but somehow political speech is no longer vital when it comes to a Trump supporter.
Kaitlan.
Q So, the Proud Boys, or people who consider them to be members of this group, give voice to these misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant views. They're a despicable group by pretty much anyone's standard. So when the President was asked about them, and you say he denounced them - that's what you're insisting that he did on the debate stage the other night - if that's the case, then why are they celebrating what the President said on the debate stage in front of millions of people?
MS. MCENANY: Well, I don't speak for that group, so I'm not sure why you're asking me why they're saying a certain thing.
Q But I'm saying, if someone denounced you, you probably wouldn't put it on a t-shirt and makes badges of it, right?
MS. MCENANY: The President did denounce them. He was asked, "Will you tell them to stand down?" He said, "Sure," and went on to stand -
Q He said to "stand by," which seems like an instruction.
MS. MCENANY: He said, "Stand back." And then just yesterday, when he was asked, he said specifically "stand down," a synonym with "stand back." And the President said "sure" when asked by the moderator whether they should stand down. So again -
Q No, he said -
MS. MCENANY: So, again, another - it's really interesting, too, to see that the media seems to be the only one putting the names of these groups into headlines, into media reporting. He didn't know who the Proud Boys were. The first time I heard of them was in the debate. But the media continues to put these names into circulation and give them a lot of public attention.
Justin.
Q The President was given about 12 hours - more than that - since from the debate from when he was asked to clarify yesterday. And he didn't come out and clarify yesterday. Instead, he did what you did when John asked you to unambiguously denounce these groups. You just pointed to past things that you've said. You can't - I just don't understand why you knew you were going to get these questions, and you don't have a statement ready to just say, "We do unambiguously denounce these groups -
MS. MCENANY: Kaitlan, you know what is -
Q - and they are not our supporters that we welcome."
MS. MCENANY: Do you know what is - do you know why people have lost trust in the media? There was a reporter from your network yesterday - your network - and in a tweet said, quote, "The President -
Q I'm asking you a question.
MS. MCENANY: I'm answering your question.
Q I don't even know what you're going to bring up, but that has nothing to do with what I'm asking you right now.
MS. MCENANY: I sat here - I sat here when you lobbed your partisan attack question, so you will allow me to give an answer.
The President and someone from your network said yesterday, in a tweet, "The President dodged a question about white supremacy." That was a tweet from a CNN reporter. The President specifically, verbatim, was asked yesterday, "White supremacy, do you denounce them?" To which he responded, "I have always denounced any form of that." Those are the facts. And, CNN, I know that truth is of no moment to your network, but those are the facts. And that's shameful (inaudible) your reporting.
Q They're not the facts. Why are Republicans - Republicans are calling on the President to be more forceful.
MS. MCENANY: Justin.
Q Thanks, Kayleigh.
Q His own party.
MS. MCENANY: Justin.
Q Thanks, Kayleigh. I had a question about unemployment, but I first wanted to clean up something from your opening. You said Judge Barrett was a Rhodes Scholar. I'm not sure that that's true.
MS. MCENANY: Um, that's what I have written here.
Q She attended Rhodes College.
MS. MCENANY: Attended Rhodes College. So, my bad.
Q So, very different thing. All right.
MS. MCENANY: Yes.
Q Anyway, within the last week, around 50,000 workers, Disney, United, American Airlines all lost their jobs. There's negotiations going up on Capitol Hill that there seems to be a division between Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, who has expressed some willingness and an ability to work with Speaker Pelosi, and Chief of Staff Meadows - who is widely reported to be against, sort of, moving forward with this deal - was up on the Hill speaking with Senator Paul yesterday but not involved in the actual talks.
At this point, isn't it time for the President, especially considering the tight calendar before the election, to step in himself and have these conversations? And, you know, this came up at the debate the other night. If not now, when for the President to get involved?
MS. MCENANY: Yeah, so, you know, first, I would say Nancy Pelosi is not being serious. If she becomes serious, then we can have a discussion here. But I -
Q She lowered her offer by trillions of dollars.
MS. MCENANY: And we - we raised our offer. But when you lower your offer $2.2 trillion, and you ask for direct payments to illegal immigrants, and you ask for certain deportation forgivenesses in your offer, it's not a serious offer. What we are talking about here is relief for the American people, for American citizens, not direct payments for illegal immigrants.
We raised our offer to $1.6 trillion; among that was $250 billion for state and local. The $250 billion for state and local is the estimated loss because of COVID. And also, there's $150 billion for schools, $50 billion above what Nancy Pelosi asked for. It is a good proposal, but it's one that she is not interested in.
And do you have one more question?
Q Well, I was just going to follow up on - whenever you're -
MS. MCENANY: Yeah, no, go ahead.
Q If immigration is a stumbling block and this deal is not going to - not going to get done because of that - you know, Chief Meadows, in the past, had said that you guys were looking at unilateral executive actions on airline aid, specifically. We're seeing massive layoffs in that sector right now. He had also said that there might be other things available for the millions of other Americans who are facing joblessness right now. But are any of those things going to happen?
MS. MCENANY: Yeah, it's a great question, and it's very sad to see what's happening in the airline industry. I met a few of the airline workers on a flight who would lose their job. And their job loss - 19,000 people facing layoffs - is because of Nancy Pelosi.
The White House, right now - you talk about unilateral action - we are willing to look at a plan, a legislation that is just clean legislation to protect those airline workers. Nancy Pelosi, rather than playing election partisan politics, should come to the negotiating table. Let's consolidate around things we agree on. And I think something we can agree on is 19,000 workers should not lose their job in the airlines, so it's incumbent upon Nancy Pelosi to engage with Secretary Mnuchin and the Chief of Staff on making that a reality.
Yes.
Q Thank you, Kayleigh. As you know, the President has criticized the mail-in voting process quite a bit over the last few weeks. The other day, he said, "They found a lot of ballots in a river." Who is "they"?
MS. MCENANY: So what the President was referring to are something that we've seen just in the last seven days where, in Wisconsin, there were trails of mail ending up in a ditch. So that's, I believe, the specific he was referring to, and that included absentee ballots.
Q Where specifically - in this particular statement though, who is "they" that found those ballots, and where is this river anywhere in this country?
MS. MCENANY: The local authorities. It was a ditch in Wisconsin that they were found in. And I can get the article to your inbox, if you'd like. And beyond that -
Q So he mis - but that's fine. If he misspoke, that's fine. So he meant -
MS. MCENANY: No that's - that's - I believe -
Q He meant a di- - he meant a ditch rather than a river?
MS. MCENANY: That's what the President was referring to. And you're really - you're missing the forest for the trees here. The point is -
Go Back
Yes.
Q Will the President commit to participating in the next debate before the commission changes the rules?
MS. MCENANY: First, with regard to the commission rule changes: The President made clear his view on that yesterday, that he thinks the only way there's a fair debate is changing the moderator and a change in the Democrat nominee. He wants to debate. He plans on being at the debate, but he wants the rules to be fair and wants a fair exchange, and doesn't want rules that cover for a certain candidate's inability to perform well.
Yes.
Q Thank you, Kayleigh. Can you explain why it's appropriate for the President to be holding rallies this weekend in two areas that this White House has declared to be "red zones" in Wisconsin?
MS. MCENANY: Yeah, so the President believes that people have a First Amendment right to political speech. He is having a rally. People can choose whether or not to come.
Q But the governor has begged the White House to please not continue having events like this. Your own Coronavirus Task Force says this is an area that people need to be really careful in, double down on social distancing. So why is it right for the President to be coming in there and holding another rally or two rallies?
MS. MCENANY: Well, we - we employ measures to protect rally-goers.
Q Yeah, but you don't. I mean, we've all covered these rallies.
MS. MCENANY: We encourage mask wearing, hand sanitizing.
Q These people are shoved together. There are thousands of people standing close to each other, not wearing masks.
MS. MCENANY: Did you watch the Democrat nominee's rally yesterday? There was no social distancing there, so I assume you guys expressed the same line of questioning to the Democrats.
But what I would say is this: Is there really seems to be two standards of health in this country, one for Trump supporters and one for everyone else. You had 1,300 health experts literally sign a letter that said, "We do not condemn these gatherings..." - speaking of the protests that we all saw play out - "We do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health." So it's vital if you're protesting, but somehow political speech is no longer vital when it comes to a Trump supporter.
Kaitlan.
Q So, the Proud Boys, or people who consider them to be members of this group, give voice to these misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant views. They're a despicable group by pretty much anyone's standard. So when the President was asked about them, and you say he denounced them - that's what you're insisting that he did on the debate stage the other night - if that's the case, then why are they celebrating what the President said on the debate stage in front of millions of people?
MS. MCENANY: Well, I don't speak for that group, so I'm not sure why you're asking me why they're saying a certain thing.
Q But I'm saying, if someone denounced you, you probably wouldn't put it on a t-shirt and makes badges of it, right?
MS. MCENANY: The President did denounce them. He was asked, "Will you tell them to stand down?" He said, "Sure," and went on to stand -
Q He said to "stand by," which seems like an instruction.
MS. MCENANY: He said, "Stand back." And then just yesterday, when he was asked, he said specifically "stand down," a synonym with "stand back." And the President said "sure" when asked by the moderator whether they should stand down. So again -
Q No, he said -
MS. MCENANY: So, again, another - it's really interesting, too, to see that the media seems to be the only one putting the names of these groups into headlines, into media reporting. He didn't know who the Proud Boys were. The first time I heard of them was in the debate. But the media continues to put these names into circulation and give them a lot of public attention.
Justin.
Q The President was given about 12 hours - more than that - since from the debate from when he was asked to clarify yesterday. And he didn't come out and clarify yesterday. Instead, he did what you did when John asked you to unambiguously denounce these groups. You just pointed to past things that you've said. You can't - I just don't understand why you knew you were going to get these questions, and you don't have a statement ready to just say, "We do unambiguously denounce these groups -
MS. MCENANY: Kaitlan, you know what is -
Q - and they are not our supporters that we welcome."
MS. MCENANY: Do you know what is - do you know why people have lost trust in the media? There was a reporter from your network yesterday - your network - and in a tweet said, quote, "The President -
Q I'm asking you a question.
MS. MCENANY: I'm answering your question.
Q I don't even know what you're going to bring up, but that has nothing to do with what I'm asking you right now.
MS. MCENANY: I sat here - I sat here when you lobbed your partisan attack question, so you will allow me to give an answer.
The President and someone from your network said yesterday, in a tweet, "The President dodged a question about white supremacy." That was a tweet from a CNN reporter. The President specifically, verbatim, was asked yesterday, "White supremacy, do you denounce them?" To which he responded, "I have always denounced any form of that." Those are the facts. And, CNN, I know that truth is of no moment to your network, but those are the facts. And that's shameful (inaudible) your reporting.
Q They're not the facts. Why are Republicans - Republicans are calling on the President to be more forceful.
MS. MCENANY: Justin.
Q Thanks, Kayleigh.
Q His own party.
MS. MCENANY: Justin.
Q Thanks, Kayleigh. I had a question about unemployment, but I first wanted to clean up something from your opening. You said Judge Barrett was a Rhodes Scholar. I'm not sure that that's true.
MS. MCENANY: Um, that's what I have written here.
Q She attended Rhodes College.
MS. MCENANY: Attended Rhodes College. So, my bad.
Q So, very different thing. All right.
MS. MCENANY: Yes.
Q Anyway, within the last week, around 50,000 workers, Disney, United, American Airlines all lost their jobs. There's negotiations going up on Capitol Hill that there seems to be a division between Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, who has expressed some willingness and an ability to work with Speaker Pelosi, and Chief of Staff Meadows - who is widely reported to be against, sort of, moving forward with this deal - was up on the Hill speaking with Senator Paul yesterday but not involved in the actual talks.
At this point, isn't it time for the President, especially considering the tight calendar before the election, to step in himself and have these conversations? And, you know, this came up at the debate the other night. If not now, when for the President to get involved?
MS. MCENANY: Yeah, so, you know, first, I would say Nancy Pelosi is not being serious. If she becomes serious, then we can have a discussion here. But I -
Q She lowered her offer by trillions of dollars.
MS. MCENANY: And we - we raised our offer. But when you lower your offer $2.2 trillion, and you ask for direct payments to illegal immigrants, and you ask for certain deportation forgivenesses in your offer, it's not a serious offer. What we are talking about here is relief for the American people, for American citizens, not direct payments for illegal immigrants.
We raised our offer to $1.6 trillion; among that was $250 billion for state and local. The $250 billion for state and local is the estimated loss because of COVID. And also, there's $150 billion for schools, $50 billion above what Nancy Pelosi asked for. It is a good proposal, but it's one that she is not interested in.
And do you have one more question?
Q Well, I was just going to follow up on - whenever you're -
MS. MCENANY: Yeah, no, go ahead.
Q If immigration is a stumbling block and this deal is not going to - not going to get done because of that - you know, Chief Meadows, in the past, had said that you guys were looking at unilateral executive actions on airline aid, specifically. We're seeing massive layoffs in that sector right now. He had also said that there might be other things available for the millions of other Americans who are facing joblessness right now. But are any of those things going to happen?
MS. MCENANY: Yeah, it's a great question, and it's very sad to see what's happening in the airline industry. I met a few of the airline workers on a flight who would lose their job. And their job loss - 19,000 people facing layoffs - is because of Nancy Pelosi.
The White House, right now - you talk about unilateral action - we are willing to look at a plan, a legislation that is just clean legislation to protect those airline workers. Nancy Pelosi, rather than playing election partisan politics, should come to the negotiating table. Let's consolidate around things we agree on. And I think something we can agree on is 19,000 workers should not lose their job in the airlines, so it's incumbent upon Nancy Pelosi to engage with Secretary Mnuchin and the Chief of Staff on making that a reality.
Yes.
Q Thank you, Kayleigh. As you know, the President has criticized the mail-in voting process quite a bit over the last few weeks. The other day, he said, "They found a lot of ballots in a river." Who is "they"?
MS. MCENANY: So what the President was referring to are something that we've seen just in the last seven days where, in Wisconsin, there were trails of mail ending up in a ditch. So that's, I believe, the specific he was referring to, and that included absentee ballots.
Q Where specifically - in this particular statement though, who is "they" that found those ballots, and where is this river anywhere in this country?
MS. MCENANY: The local authorities. It was a ditch in Wisconsin that they were found in. And I can get the article to your inbox, if you'd like. And beyond that -
Q So he mis - but that's fine. If he misspoke, that's fine. So he meant -
MS. MCENANY: No that's - that's - I believe -
Q He meant a di- - he meant a ditch rather than a river?
MS. MCENANY: That's what the President was referring to. And you're really - you're missing the forest for the trees here. The point is -
Home
Contact
About
Service Rates
Privacy Policy
Follow on Facebook
Subscribe to Newsletters
Rss Feed
Keywords
Eastern NC Now & ENC NOW © Copyright 1998-2024 All Rights Reserved.
