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‘Indefensible And Grotesque’: Jonah Goldberg Slams Kayleigh McEnany, And Chris Wallace Joins In

Virginia Kruta Associate Editor
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The Dispatch’s Jonah Goldberg slammed White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, saying Sunday that her behavior was “indefensible and grotesque.”

Anchor Chris Wallace was also critical of McEnany as he and Goldberg discussed her most recent press briefings on “Fox News Sunday.” (RELATED: Kayleigh McEnany Turns Briefing On Its Head, Demands Answers From The Press)

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Wallace was actually first to take a shot at the new press secretary, referencing a Friday briefing during which McEnany had laid out the questions she believed the press should be asking. “I have to say that if Kayleigh McEnany had told Sam Donaldson and me what questions we should ask, that would not have gone well, Jonah,” Wallace said.

“I think her behavior is indefensible and grotesque,” Goldberg replied. “I think that what she has done is — there’s this cliche in Washington that President Trump wants Roy Cohn as DOJ, as attorney general. What Donald Trump wants in a press secretary is a Twitter troll who goes on attack, doesn’t actually care about doing the job they have and instead wants to impress really an audience of one and make another part of official Washington another one of these essentially cable news and Twitter laboratory arenas.”

Wallace took another shot, arguing that McEnany was still doing her old job — as spokesperson for the 2020 Trump reelection campaign — but doing it with a new title.

Josh Holmes, who previously served as chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, argued that the press actually put McEnany — and all Trump spokespeople — in a position where they were constantly being forced to defend themselves.

“The confrontational nature by which journos pose the questioning is not really to obtain much information so much as to try to back them into a corner and I think she said, ‘I’m not going to play that game,’ so yeah, it is completely different,” Holmes explained.

Wallace took one last shot as the segment ended, saying, “Let me just say, Sam Donaldson and me and the Reagan White House, we were pretty tough on the White House press secretaries and we never had our religious beliefs questioned or were lectured on what we should ask.”