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White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany ripped into the media during a wild press conference on Monday for their repeated questions regarding a tweet in which President Donald Trump said NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace should “apologize” for the recent noose “hoax.”
“I would end with this. I was asked probably 12 questions about the Confederate Flag. This president is focused on action. I’m a little dismayed that I didn’t receive one question on the deaths this weekend. I didn’t receive one question about New York City shootings doubling for the third straight week, and over the last seven days, shootings skyrocket by 142 percent. Not one question,” McEnany noted.
She then chastised reporters for remaining fixated on the president’s tweet while ignoring more important issues such as the rapidly accelerating homicide rates for blacks — especially black children — in the larger context of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I didn’t receive one question about five children who were killed. I will leave you with this remark by a dad. It broke my heart. A death of an 8-year-old loss in Atlanta this weekend. ‘They say, Black Lives Matter? You killed the child, she didn’t do nothing to nobody,’ was his quote,” she continued.
“We need to be focused on securing our streets, making sure no lives are lost, because all Black Lives Matter. That of David Dorn, and that of this 8-year-old girl,” said, in reference to the retired St. Louis Police captain who was shot and killed last month amid rioting in that city as he responded to an alarm at a pawn shop.
Reporters repeatedly badgered McEnany with the same question: Why Wallace — who hyped the ultimately false story that a “noose” had been intentionally placed in his garage space last month ahead of a race at Talladega Superspeedway — needed to express a mea culpa.
McEnany explained a number of times that the president simply meant that nearly everyone at NASCAR, including top management and most drivers as well as the media, leapt to the conclusion that the noose, which was dangling at the end of a rope used to pull down a stall door at the racetrack and had been hanging there for months, was meant as a racial insult to Wallace.
They also peppered her with questions about the president’s remark that NASCAR’s decision — at Wallace’s insistence — to ban all Confederate flags from racing events has caused low ratings for the sport.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1280117571874951170
#NASCAR has released the photo of the noose found in the No. 43 garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday afternoon. (Photo Credit: NASCAR) pic.twitter.com/09StWX6fbg
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) June 25, 2020
To illustrate her point, she referenced the phony ‘hate crime’ conjured up last year by actor Jussie Smollett in which most mainstream media outlets immediately bought into the former “Empire” star’s story that Trump-supporting whites had attacked him in Chicago early one morning.
Reporters were furious with McEnany and vented their rage online.
.@PressSec briefing is off the rails. Doesn't answer the question she's repeatedly asked about the president saying Bubba Wallace should "apologize," then gets angry reporters are pressing her on it.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 6, 2020
.@PressSec comparison of Bubba Wallace noose incident to Jussie Smollett – Smollett has been accused of staging an incident. No one has accused Wallace of staging a noose in his garage stall.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 6, 2020
.@PressSec is repeatedly telling reporters the president said something different than what he actually said. https://t.co/prBVaODLKW
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 6, 2020
Worth noting that White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany — speaking on behalf of the White House and President Trump — so far has repeatedly been unable to take any unambiguous stance about the place of the Confederate flag in our society.
— Ashley Parker (@AshleyRParker) July 6, 2020
WH press sec McEnany repeatedly declines to say whether President Trump supports the Confederate flag.
Many Americans have strong opinions on the Confederate flag — and Trump, of course, has strong opinions on many topics — but she claims he doesn’t have one on the flag.
— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) July 6, 2020
https://twitter.com/AaronBlake/status/1280197002916233218
This @PressSec briefing is something
— Tom LoBianco (@tomlobianco) July 6, 2020
.@PaulaReidCBS repeatedly asked: Why should @BubbaWallace apologize for a hate crime investigation that he didn't initiate? @PressSec doesn't answer directly repeatedly. Instead, she says the president wants to criticize rush to judgements. https://t.co/wXDTjCUX7I
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) July 6, 2020
That said, NASCAR chief Steve Phelps admitted to reporters Monday that he and league officials jumped to conclusions.
“Upon learning of and seeing the noose, our initial reaction was to protect our driver. We’re living in a highly charged and emotional time. What we saw was a symbol of hate and was only present in one area of the garage, that of the 43 car of Bubba Wallace,” Phelps said.
“In hindsight, we should have — I should have — used the word ‘alleged’ in our statement,” he added. “…[T]here has been discussion and criticism of how this was handled and characterized. Some feel that the phrasing or words used were not right. That comes with the territory. And I will take full responsibility for that, and for the emotion that was attached to it.”
Shortly after the noose was found — and before the FBI sent 15 agents to investigate — Phelps characterized the incident as a “despicable act of racism and hatred.”
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Jon is a staff writer for BizPac Review with 30 years' worth of reporting experience, as well as an author and U.S. Army veteran. He has a BA in political science from Ashford University and an MA in national security studies/intelligence analysis from American Military University.
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