Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Tuesday that President Joe Biden could not address the “root causes” behind Cuban protests without angering his own party.
McEnany said on “Outnumbered” that Biden and other administration officials were not using the word “communism” in their response to Cuban cries for freedom because too many within the Democratic Party viewed socialism or socialist policies favorably. (RELATED: ‘Far More Than Just About COVID’: Ana Navarro Cheers Cubans Protesting Regime That ‘Kills, Jails, Beats, Harasses Political Dissidents’)
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Co-host Harris Faulkner mentioned the protests in Cuba — which Biden referred to as a “clarion call for freedom” — before turning the question to McEnany.
“I don’t know if you’ve heard [Democratic Vermont] Senator [Bernie] Sanders, you’ve got [Democratic New York Rep.] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with the Green New Deal, all of that, those more socialist-leaning policies, is that why Biden isn’t saying the word ‘communism?'” she asked.
“That is exactly why he isn’t saying the word ‘communism’ period,” McEnany replied. “We have seen him kowtow to the far left on every step of the way, on immigration, not calling out heinous rhetoric from [Democratic Michigan Rep.] Rashida Tlaib and others. They continually bow down to the farthest left flank of their party and it’s intolerable to have Senator Sanders who once praise the regime in Cuba, praised the Cuban revolution, all the other horrible things we’ve heard him and others say as recently as the last presidential election when he praised their literacy program and did not call the atrocities — adequately enough in my mind — did not call the atrocities of Fidel Castro and Raul Castro’s government.”
“This is egregious, they need to call it out, and instead they bring up economic mismanagement as the reason and COVID and lack of vaccines,” McEnany continued, arguing that Democrats were focusing on the symptoms of the underlying and “deeply rooted disease that is communism.”
“They can point to the symptoms but they are not pointing to the, to quote Kamala, ‘root cause,'” McEnany concluded, apparently mocking Vice President Kamala Harris’ insistence on handling “root causes” of immigration rather than simply going to the U.S.-Mexico border to determine what needed to be done.