From Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), the list of President Donald Trump's critics-turned-allies is long. Once a joke among the Republican party when launching his presidential campaign in the Summer of 2015, Trump grew to be emblematic of it, largely by harnessing racist scare tactics and general aggression.
When then-candidate Donald Trump began his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants "rapists" and "murderers," he received widespread backlash from many figureheads of the Republican party.
Among those criticizing him was Kayleigh McEnany—who was appointed as Trump's latest White House Press Secretary little more than a month ago.
In a CNN interview, McEnany said of Trump's words:
"To me, a racist statement is a racist statement. I don't like what Donald Trump said,...Donald Trump has shown himself to be a showman, I don't think he is a serious candidate. I think it is a sideshow. It's not within the mainstream of the candidates."
Later, in June, when Trump enjoyed growing support in New Hampshire, McEnany said on Fox's Kennedy:
"Some of the things we heard in his speech when he said, when Mexico sends people across the border, they're sending criminals and rapists and maybe some good people. Look, the GOP doesn't need to be turning away voters and isolating them. We need to be bringing them into the tent. Donald Trump is the last person who's going to do that."
She even called Trump a fake Conservative later that month:
"I don't want to claim this guy. Donald Trump, if we're going to be honest, is a progressive. He supports eminent domain. He supported tax increases before. He's donated 300,000 to Democratic candidates. So, the fact that the Republican Party is now having to claim him, is both unfortunate, and to me, inauthentic. Because this is not a true Republican candidate. And the fact that he's being portrayed as such in media is troublesome and not accurate."
This wasn't the first time McEnany criticized Donald Trump, but she's since become one of his most loyal supporters, refusing to acknowledge that he's even capable of making mistakes. She even made the laughable claim that Trump—who's made over 18,000 false statements since his inauguration—never told a single lie to the American people.
Oh, Kayleigh, how far you've fallen.
But as Trump's victory proved, stances Republicans used to decry as racist are now the platform of the party—and his former critics aren't above exploiting that.
For a deeper look into the chaos of the Trump administration, check out A Very Stable Genius, available here.
