The shameless charlatans in the liberal media were at it again on Thursday, engaging in fake news by taking White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s comments about reopening schools out of context so as to paint her as anti-science.
Reporters had tried to poison the public into thinking she had said science shouldn’t prevent schools from reopening, but the audio (and thus the facts) showed she wanted schools reopened safely with science in mind. Alas, the Trump-hating press didn’t care about being thorough.
First, what McEnany actually said. EWTN’s Owen Jensen asked her the following during Thursday’s White House briefing: “Well, you talked about earlier, the school districts overseeing --- more school districts, at least in Virginia, for example, last night decided to go online only. What does the President say to the parents out there who are now going, okay, what I do with my kids?”
McEnany began by reiterating how President Trump “has said unmistakably that he wants schools to open and I was just in the Oval talking to him about that and when he means open and full, kids being able to attend each and every day at their school.”
Next came the sentence that the liberal media isolated, but it was quickly followed by her citing of a JAMA Pediatrics study about “the risk of critical illness from COVID” to children being “far less” compared to the flu.
Here were the rest of her remarks in full, since the D.C. and NYC press don’t seem to want you to see them:
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 is doing it. We are the outlier here.” The science is very clear on this, that, you know, for instance, you look at the JAMA of pediatric 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 a seasonal flu. The science is on our side here, and we encourage 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 is mental depressions [sic] 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 be open.
Pretty simple, right? But as usual, the bad-faith journalists were hellbent on furthering their own spin with CBS News and The Washington Post having led the way. A CBS tweet took the first part of McEnany’s answer about what Trump wants to see happen and ended with her sentence about “the science.”
The Post was even worse, tweeting: “White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on school reopenings: ‘The science should not stand in the way of this.’”
From there, the race was on. Former Cheddar editor-in-chief and former NYT writer Jim Roberts tweeted that it was “jawdropping” and “stunning.” The Times’s Alex Rainert griped: “‘The Science Should Not Stand in the Way Of [sic] This’ is a succinct was basically capture the admin’s Covid strategy to date.”
Epidemiologist, former Obama official, and frequent cable news guest Dr. Peter Hotez typed in a since-deleted tweet that McEnany’s comments were “outrageous” and claimed “all science says that it’s not safe to reopen schools” where there’s growing cases. The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch tweeted dismay at how McEnany showcases “the entire failure of this Administration in a nutshell.”
CNN’s Jim Acosta tweeted the out-of-context sentence without, well, context. As of this blog’s publication, the tweet drew over 36,600 retweets and almost 74,000 likes. Instead of deleting it, he added a follow-up that has only pulled in nearly 750 retweets and 2,100 likes.
CBS’s Weijia Jiang did the same thing and hers fetched over 7,000 retweets and over 20,000 likes. Jiang tacked on a tweet below that three hours later with a screencap of the briefing transcript, but it drew only 450 retweets and 1,000 likes.
Since neither of those journalists are interested in granting the White House an inch, Acosta and Jiang didn’t apologize for furthering this lie about McEnany.
For more examples that ranged from NBC’s Josh Lederman to the Lincoln Project to Bill Nye to Jennifer Rubin, check out another trademark thread from our friend Drew Holden.
To see the relevant transcript from July 16’s briefing, click “expand.”
White House Press Briefing
July 16, 2020
2:49 p.m. EasternOWEN JENSEN: Well, you talked about earlier, the school districts overseeing --- more school districts, at least in Virginia, for example, last night decided to go online only. What does the President say to the parents out there who are now going, okay, what I do with my kids?
KAYLEIGH MCENANY: Yeah, 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 means open and 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 is doing it. We are the outlier here.” The science is very clear on this, that, you know, for instance, you look at the JAMA of pediatric 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 a seasonal flu. The science is on our side here, and we encourage 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 is mental depressions [sic] 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 be open.
