White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany shut down Fox News’s Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts for demanding that she condemn white supremacy on behalf of the president after President Donald Trump had already denounced it multiple times.
After the contentious Thursday morning briefing, McEnany tweeted directly at Roberts telling him to check his wife Kyra Phillips’s reporting for ABC from the day before.
“@johnrobertsFox I would refer you to your wife’s reporting from 21 hours ago… accurate reporting I cited in the White House Press Briefing,” she wrote, retweeting Phillips’s report showing Trump denounced white supremacists.
“Just now: @realDonaldTrump tells me he DENOUNCES white supremacists @ABCPolitics @ABCNewsLive @ABCWorldNews @ABC @johnrobertsFox,” Phillips’s tweet reads.
.@johnrobertsFox I would refer you to your wife’s reporting from 21 hours ago… accurate reporting I cited in the White House Press Briefing. https://t.co/dV3Hzp1UaI
— Kayleigh McEnany 45 Archived (@PressSec45) October 1, 2020
Earlier in the day, Roberts repeatedly demanded that McEnany make a statement explicitly condemning white supremacy on behalf of White House.
“I’d like to ask you for a definitive and declarative statement, without ambiguity or deflection. As the person who speaks for the president, does the president denounce white supremacism, a group that is founded in all their forms?” he asked.
“This has been answered yesterday by the president himself. The day before by the president himself on the debate stage. The president was asked this and he said ‘sure’ three times. Yesterday, he was point-blank asked ‘Do you denounce white supremacy’ and he said ‘I’ve always denounced any form of that,’” McEnany said, before listing off examples of Trump’s comments denouncing racism, neo-nazis, white supremacy, and the KKK.
“He has condemned white supremacy more than any president in modern history,” she added.
After the briefing, Roberts appeared angry and flustered during a live shot from the White House on Fox News, in which he directly addressed “all of you on Twitter who are hammering me for asking that question.”
On Fox News, @johnrobertsFox is visibly angry that @PressSec won't offer a clear denunciation of white supremacy: "Stop deflecting. Stop blaming the media. I'm tired of it. " pic.twitter.com/GcPcOsAHqJ
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) October 1, 2020