White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Tuesday sounded off on President Donald Trump’s sparring with White House reporters, including an exchange the day before with CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang in which Jiang took offense to Trump telling her to ask her “nasty” coronavirus-related question to China, where the virus is believed to have originated, because of her Asian heritage.
McEnany said it is “a ridiculous assertion” to think Trump told her to “ask China” because she is Asian, which Trump also clarified in the exchange.
“Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade asked McEnany after airing a clip of the exchange, “Do you want to expand on that? I guess she was saying that maybe the president was saying that because she’s Asian. Did that figure into that at all?”
“No, that’s a ridiculous assertion,” McEnany replied. “But what I would note is leave it to members of the White House press corps to make it about them, to take a question, to turn around and somehow say, ‘How dare you ask this of me, me, me.’ Well, guess what, it’s not about ‘me,’ this is about the American people. President Trump says ask China about this, ask China about the fact that they slow-walked information, that alongside the W.H.O. that American lives were put at risk. China has some real questions to answer here, but leave it [to] the White House press corps to make it about themselves.”
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