Media Runs Out-Of-Context Kayleigh McEnany Quote to Suggest Trump Ignoring Science on Reopening Schools
The fake news spread by supposedly objective reporters got so out of hand that CNN’s Jake Tapper stepped in to correct the reporting done by his White House correspondent colleague Jim Acosta and many others.
As we’ve previously documented, if it’s a day ending in “y,” it’s also one where mainstream media reporters are going to take a Republican out of context and spread fake news stories about them because of narratives and Orange Man Bad.
The most recent example of this happening was Thursday during the daily White House press briefing. The issue of whether or not public schools should fully reopen has been a hot topic of much discussion in recent days. President Trump has pushed for in-person school attendance while some governors are opting for a combination of either in-person schooling and remote/online learning, or remote instruction only.
During Thursday’s press briefing, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was asked a couple of different times about Trump’s stance on schools reopening. The first one related to CDC guidelines and whether or not the President would be rethinking his position once revised guidelines came out:
Reporter: On the schools: The President — the Vice President talked about some of the new guidelines or new pages of documents for CDC coming out this week. Is that still the plan? Are those going to come out this week? Is there any chance that this is being rethought at this time?
McEnany: So those are CDC guidelines you’re referencing, so I’ll leave it to CDC as to when those guidelines come out. But we really would like to see schools open. As has been clear, we don’t think our children should be locked up at home with devastating consequences when it’s perfectly safe for them to go to school, as emphasized by many medical experts. So the President is very keen on seeing schools reopen. It’s the only thing that’s fair to America’s children.
It was McEnany’s response to the second question on reopening schools that sent the media rushing to their social media feeds to proclaim she suggested Trump was willing to ignore science to get kids to return to the classroom:
Reporter: Well, you talked about earlier, with school districts — what we’re seeing is more school districts — at least in Virginia, for example, last night — deciding to go online only. What does the President say to parents out there who are now going, “Okay, what do I do with my kids?”
McEnany: You know, the President has said unmistakably that he wants schools to open. And I was just in the Oval talking to him about that. And when he says open, he means open in full — kids being able to attend each and every day at their school. The science should not stand in the way of this. And as Dr. Scott Atlas said — I thought this was a good quote — “Of course, we can [do it]. Everyone else in the Western world, our peer nations are doing it. We are the outlier here.”
The science is very clear on this, that — you know, for instance, you look at the JAMA Pediatrics study of 46 pediatric hospitals in North America that said the risk of critical illness from COVID is far less for children than that of seasonal flu. The science is on our side here, and we encourage for localities and states to just simply follow the science, open our schools. It’s very damaging to our children: There is a lack of reporting of abuse; there’s mental depressions that are not addressed; suicidal ideations that are not addressed when students are not in school. Our schools are extremely important, they’re essential, and they must reopen.
Watch:
It was obvious listening to and reading her full quote that she was not suggesting Trump wanted to ignore science to reopen public schools for in-person attendance. Nevertheless, here’s how several news outlets and journalists reported her comments on their Twitter feeds:
The White House Press Secretary on Trump's push to reopen schools: "The science should not stand in the way of this."
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) July 16, 2020
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on school reopenings:
"The science should not stand in the way of this.” pic.twitter.com/w6H9DM0uTV
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 16, 2020
From the White House podium:
“Science should not stand in the way” of reopening schools. https://t.co/pE2AN6GtyM— Weijia Jiang (@weijia) July 16, 2020
"The science should not stand in the way of this,” McEnany said, adding it is "perfectly safe" to fully reopen all classrooms. https://t.co/aJp8loW84H
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) July 17, 2020
Stunning.
Jawdropping.
The White House @PressSec just called for schools to reopen, saying: “The science should not stand in the way of this.”https://t.co/AXanf2pp05 pic.twitter.com/zZ8mURlEB4— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) July 16, 2020
Twitter user Drew Holden posted a lengthy thread documenting numerous instances of reporters and Democrats running wild with the out-of-context-quote, which you can read unrolled here.
The “stunning, jaw-dropping” fake news spread online by supposedly objective reporters got so out of hand that CNN’s Jake Tapper stepped in to correct the reporting done by many journalists, including his White House correspondent colleague Jim Acosta:
Folks read the ENTIRE McEnany comment about “the science should not stand in the way” of opening schools. She’s arguing that the science is on the side of those who want to open them, she cites a JAMA study. I’m not taking a position on the matter but be fair.
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 16, 2020
McEnany herself also weighed in to call out the false reports:
Case Study in Media Bias:
I said: “The science is very clear on this…the science is on our side here. We encourage our localities & states to just simply follow the science. Open our schools.”
But leave it to the media to deceptively suggest I was making the opposite point! https://t.co/vlxk3zRsgh
— Kayleigh McEnany 45 Archived (@PressSec45) July 16, 2020
This is just another variation of the bogus “Trump is willing to sacrifice senior citizens to get the economy back up and running” stories we heard back in April, except the media are saying this time around that it’s children Trump wants to sacrifice.
Media reporters were wrong then, and they’re wrong now. Even more to the point, they just flat out lied in both instances.
I’d say “shame on them,” but I think it’s been firmly established at this point that most national media reporters don’t have any.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
It’s pretty bad when Jake Tapper has to point out how horribly out of control the “media” truly is.
You beat me to it. I was going to say the same thing.
Leftists hate the idea of limited government because it limits what they can do to people. I must confess that there are times when I understand their frustration.
If I were a leftist dictator, the lying media would not be a problem. Our only problem would be a shortage of bullets. On the other hand, dictators are notoriously bad at distinguishing lies from truth, so we’d have traded one problem for another.
We all know the media is duplicious
Sorry, she walked right into this one by using the word “should” in that sentence. She obviously meant “should” as in
But “should” can also mean
By using this word she allowed them to quote her accurately, without comment, and simply allow their readers to make the wrong assumption entirely on their own. If she’d used the word “does” they wouldn’t have been able to do that.
This reminds me of the huge fuss that Tony Blair inadvertently created when he said that the decision to invade Iraq was made on policy grounds, and the intelligence needed to fixed around that decision. He obviously meant “fix” as in “to set firmly in place”; having decided what to do, they now had to gather the facts and make the case for it. He wasn’t to know that to Americans the first meaning of “fix” that comes to mind in that context is “to manipulate fraudulently”, but by simply quoting that one sentence reporters allowed their readers to assume the second meaning.
Egads Mihouse! You are defending the press here? You need a new job. This is just the blatant laziness by the Press using the “accurate” quote inaccurately. Wordsmith it all you want. If the press was doing their job, their focus would be providing news, not trying to get a “gotcha” moment, which failed here.
They are like a bunch of third grade spoiled brats. Ha Ha, gotcha.
They need a good spanking
It’s not wordsmithing, it’s English.
McEnany handed them an opportunity on a platter—to quote her accurately, even exactly, and leave it to the public to misunderstand it.
A pro should know better than to make the job of making her look dumb—the chosen profession of the press—so easy. Make the bastards work for it.
Ms. McEnany should certainly expect the media to distort what she says.
But in fairness, this lie is so obviously intentional that she could have said “I love baby ducks and I hate terrorism,” which the media would have reported as “I love … terrorism.”
It reminds me of a line in an old movie, “Absence of Malice.” A newspaper editor asks a reporter if an article is true. She replies, “No, but it’s accurate.”
Excellent example of “fact” versus “truth”.
Who’s spinning now? The press didn’t have to edit this one, they could repeat it verbatim.
When dealling with primitives one must be exact, make no assumptions about commmonly understood meanings, and don’t make it easy for them to get it wrong. Nobody ever said it’s an easy job.
“I love … terrorism” is false editing, i.e. a lie. Here there was no editing and no lie. They told the exact truth; but in such a way that the readers’ minds can be counted on to supply the lie.
I recall George McGovern’s campaign manager calling Hunter S. Thompson’s coverage of the 1972 Presidential race the “least accurate, most factual”.
Indeed. I’m surprised at how clumsy that wording was. She’s supposed to be the pro, right? Her statement can be read in two nearly opposite ways, at least so far as English grammar is concerned, and she should know better than to leave it up to the press to pick the one she meant. They’ll report on the one they prefer, and they won’t have to lie or go all “out of context” to do it.
An appalling blunder, on the level of the Regan White House’s statement that if they’d killed Gaddafi in the F-111 bombing attack it would have been “fortuitous”—in the classical meaning, that just means by chance, but in modern sloppy reading, it means “lucky”, as in “good luck” rather than “chance”, the word “lucky”s original meaning. This is a big deal because if they meant by “good” luck, they’d just admitted to an assassination attempt, but if they meant purely by random chance, then they haven’t.
Why do you keep feeling the need to try to ride in as a white knight and defend leftists of all stripes, including the media? There is simply no defense for their outright knowing lie.
I don’t defend the left, I defend the truth. And the truth is that she walked into that one. The reporters did not need to lie; she gave them a quote that they could report exactly word for word, but in a way that would lead the readers to supply a false interpretation. The lie is not in the reporting, it’s the impression created in the reader’s mind.
They absolutely lied. Cutting a sentence in half and presenting only the part you want is, flatly, lying, Milhouse. You know it. I know it. Just stop.
They didn’t cut a sentence in half. And no, even if they had it would not have been a lie. Why don’t you stop lying?
There is simply no defense for their outright knowing lie.
What lie is that? They didn’t have to fabricate anything. She handed them an easy win.
It must be humiliating to be the parent or sibling of a “journalist.”
Like Chris Wallace’s dad?
I can’t wait until she looks each and every one of them right in the eye, read back their tweet and say ” really”.
And smile when she does it. She’s fun to watch.
.
A half truth is the blackest sort of lie.
I’ll leave it to a “urinalist” to make that statement something it isn’t.
.
The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement that kids should return to school in the fall. The media reported that and immediately forgot it.
Trump repeated what the AAP said, and the media said that Trump was ignoring the science and wanted school kids to die. I don’t know how even the farthest left-wing Democrat or Marxist would fail to notice the political spin from the media.
The media are as deliberately dishonest as they can be right now. I happened to be on CNN’s page for a business article and found a really stupid article about cancel culture. The writer COMPLETELY IGNORED its effect on average, everyday people and tried to claim it was all about power struggles between celebrities with platforms and people who typically have no power trying to take it back.
The “media”, as we have learned, are agents of Communist China, bought and paid for.
Traitor bastards.
Monitor for symptoms at the door. Otherwise, wash hands to mitigate viral progression. The evidence supports that Wuhan/Covid-19 primary tranmission path is manual (a la HIV/AIDS).
The Father has put it in my heart as well as my wife to pray for this administration. My wife is especially compelled to pray for Kayleigh.
We are among those who believe we are in a time of “shaking” as a prelude to God’s judgment and we’re stunned by the way in which people are showing themselves in these times to be in one camp (light) or the other (darkness). This matter with Keyleigh is a sobering example of the passage in Matthew 25 where people are divided as sheep from goats based on how they have responded to “these brothers of mine”.
To that end, Kayleigh is a child of God, which is to be a “brother” (or sister 😉 ) of Christ. He said in Matthew 25 “when I was naked, you (did or did not) clothe me”. Many take that literally and move along. But what if it is meant in a broader sense as in covering for one another – as in “I was exposed, and you (did or did not) cover my exposure”? In this example, Kayleigh used imperfect words which left her exposed for people to either ridicule (exalt themselves at her expense) or to give her the benefit of the doubt (pardon with grace). Their response demonstrates whether they are goats or sheep (children of darkness or of light).
It grieves me to see so many people diving headlong into the darkness.
“It grieves me to see so many people diving headlong into the darkness…”
Unfortunately, it’s an old story that keeps repeating itself. Pain is the only answer – until it’s forgotten, then the story repeats itself.
Communists are the greatest threat to the America we love, only because we tolerate them. A big mistake.
These press conferences are a joke. The only benefit is Kayleigh insulting these communist propagandists.
Wait for the lying CDC to issue guidelines? Why, they’re part of the anti-Trump swamp.
I wish LI would stop using wishy washy headlines like “the media suggest blah blah blah”!
The media isn’t suggesting fuck all. The media is flat out telling lies 24/7 about what was said abs they don’t give a flying rats ass about the truthfulness of their wilful lies.
In this case they did not lie. They merely told the truth in a way that they knew would be misunderstood by most readers. That’s misleading, not lying.
A lie of omission is still a lie. There’s a reason the standard oath given during court testimony includes the phrase “the whole truth”.
I call that Clintonizing, after Bill Clinton, who could lie by technically telling the truth better than anyone I’ve ever seen.