The last press secretary of the Trump White House was mocked after claiming that her former boss would have done a better job of standing up to Vladimir Putin and Russian aggression in Ukraine on Tuesday.
Kayleigh McEnany, now a co-host of the Fox News show Outnumbered, made the eyebrow-raising remarks on Tuesday’s broadcast while a discussion of Russia’s decision to move troops into Donbas was underway.
“The real truth here is this, that there is no greater supporter of the Democrat Party than Vladimir Putin because he got Crimea on Obama's watch, and now he's getting exactly what he wants on Joe Biden's watch as his minions go out onto the airwaves [and] refuse to call it an invasion,” Ms McEnany said, referring to a statement from the Biden White House which contended that a Russian movement of troops into Donbas was not an “invasion” because Russian forces were already present in the region.
She continued: “The bottom line is this: two embassies evacuated in one year of Biden. Two countries gone essentially in one year of Biden. That is all you need to know.”
Ms McEnany’s comments, while no longer directly associated with those of Donald Trump, nevertheless nearly mirrored a statement the former president himself put out on Tuesday which served to be his first real comments on the matter after weeks of rising tensions in the region.
“If properly handled, there was absolutely no reason that the situation currently happening in Ukraine should have happened at all. I know Vladimir Putin very well, and he would have never done during the Trump Administration what he is doing now, no way!” Mr Trump claimed on Tuesday.
“The weak sanctions are insignificant relative to taking over a country and a massive piece of strategically located land,” added the former president.
Both Mr Trump’s comments and that of his former press secretary come despite the general understanding that Russia’s government actively sought Mr Trump’s election over that of his opponent, Hillary Clinton, in 2016. In the months after the election, America’s intelligence community released an assessment stating that Russian government-aligned operatives conducted operations including the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee with the intention of denigrating Ms Clinton and harming her campaign for president.
As a result, Ms McEnany’s comments were roundly excoriated in the mentions of her tweet after the former White House aide posted video of the exchange on her page.
“Trump tried to kill NATO for Putin,” wrote one commenter. “That's the love you guys have for authoritarianism.”
Another added: “Review the real timeline... It was during your Boss's 4 years that funds for Ukrainian Arms were WITHHELD... not to mention used in an attempt to blackmail the Ukraine into helping your Boss swing an election!”
Mr Trump was accused in 2020 of trying to coerce Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to direct his officials to open a criminal investigation into Joe Biden and/or his son Hunter Biden, who previously did business in the country, as the presidential election raged and Mr Trump sought to damage his opponent’s public image. The incident led to Mr Trump’s first impeachment by the House and acquittal by the US Senate.
