Former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany was once perhaps the Trump administration's most prominent mouthpiece, regularly downplaying the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic.
She's now a Fox News contributor, where she performs a similar function.
On yesterday's program, McEnany commented on the United States' stagnant vaccine campaign, claiming the Biden administration is the "biggest contributor" to vaccine hesitancy.
She even found time to refer to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as the "deep state," to hark back to one of former President Donald Trump's favorite conspiracy theories.
McEnany said:
"The biggest contributor to vaccine hesitancy is the Joe Biden administration."
"This talk of mandates, Dr. Fauci being all over the map on masks—first it's one, then it's two, then it's zero if you're vaccinated, now we're back to one—this contributes to people having distrust of the federal government, of the CDC, where you had [CDC Director Dr. Rochelle] Walensky come out to Bret Baier and say yes, we are considering a vaccine mandate, only to walk that back mere moments later."
She went on to claim—despite a lack of any evidence—that data about the highly contagious Delta variant was "leaked by the deep state and the CDC":
"When you have this new recommendation of masking indoors in high-intensity areas and you don't release the underlying data for that proposal, instead it's leaked by the deep state and the CDC to The Washington Post and then days later you come out and corroborate that data."
McEnany argued the Trump administration was consistent with its messaging on masks and on whether or not children should be in schools.
She claimed masks are detrimental to the emotional development of young children, though these statements only further opened her up to online criticism while appearing on a network that has regularly undermined vaccines.
McEnany made no mention of the Trump administration's mixed messaging on Covid-19 and vaccines. In June, she claimed that she never once lied while serving as former President Trump's press secretary, despite breaking that promise on numerous occasions.
Last year, she denied that the White House had a "herd immunity" approach to the Covid-19 pandemic as harsh criticism mounted over the Trump administration's response amid record highs of daily cases.
Former President Trump has often claimed credit for Operation Warp Speed, the partnership initiated by the federal government to facilitate and accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines and medical treatments.
However, he has pushed back against the idea that he is responsible for vaccine hesitancy despite defending disproved Covid-19 treatments. President Joe Biden, by contrast, has promoted vaccinations since before he took office.
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