In April 2020, Kayleigh McEnany was named President Donald Trump's new White House press
secretary, and now, her name is on everyone's lips. Given her career path, it seems like she
was essentially made for her new role. This is the untold truth of Kayleigh McEnany.
Kayleigh McEnany is well-off and famous, but only the second part of that came from working
hard and making connections. Raised in a wealthy family, McEnany's parents run McEnany Roofing,
a lucrative commercial roofing company in the booming Tampa, Florida area. McEnany
Roofing is so large that it employs more than 140 people and received at least $1 million
in the Paycheck Protection Program issued as a form of coronavirus economic relief.
The future pundit and communications specialist's family life was also religious,
and Kayleigh attended the elite and expensive Academy of the Holy Names,
a private Catholic school in Tampa. As one of the few Protestant students,
she was heavily involved in the debate club and participated on the cheerleading squad.
Kayleigh McEnany has since made a name for herself in Washington, D.C.,
but she never fully left Tampa, as she owns a home in the city's fancy Davis Islands neighborhood.
Politicians and journalists are often highly and thoroughly educated,
boasting multiple degrees from some of the world's most prestigious learning institutions.
Kayleigh McEnany has worked in both politics and journalism,
and as such entered the workforce with an impressive education section on her resume.
After graduating from the Academy of Holy Names, she attended Georgetown University, majoring in
international politics in the college's School of Foreign Service. During her undergrad years,
McEnany studied abroad for a year at St. Edmund Hall, a constituent of Oxford University.
Upon earning her degree from Georgetown in 2010, McEnany found work in the media, serving as a
production assistant for three years on Huckabee, the Fox News show hosted by former Arkansas
governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. According to Huckabee, McEnany was frustrated that
she couldn't get an on-air job at the network, which prompted her to go back to school.
She enrolled in law school at the University of Miami,
earning a merit-based scholarship for landing among the top 1 percent of her
class. Nevertheless, McEnany later transferred to Harvard Law School.
If real life is like high school, then Kayleigh McEnany and Sean Gilmartin are
exactly the kind of couple that wind up together: The former cheerleader,
successful student, and overachiever eventually married the hotshot baseball player.
According to The Tampa Bay Times, McEnany and Gilmartin first got together in 2015,
when the seasoned minor league relief pitcher was spending his first season
in the big leagues with the New York Mets. He was later traded to the Baltimore Orioles
and then the Tampa Bay Rays by 2020, which just so happens to be McEnany's hometown.
In November 2017, McEnany and Gilmartin were married in a lavish ceremony.
Not long before she took the job of White House press secretary,
McEnany gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Blake.
Facing down breast cancer
According to an editorial she wrote for Fox News in May 2019,
Kayleigh McEnany faced concerning health news nine years earlier.
She'd tested positive for the BRCA 2 genetic mutation, which indicated an extremely strong
likelihood that McEnany would one day develop breast cancer. Women with that particular genetic
issue carry an 84 percent chance of a future diagnosis for the potentially fatal disease.
However, there's a medical procedure that cuts those odds down to what McEnany
said in her Fox News op-ed are, quote, "virtually zero": a preventative double
mastectomy [mast-ECK-tah-me], or the voluntary surgical removal of the breasts. In May 2018,
the then-30-year-old pundit checked into the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida for
her pre-scheduled surgery. McEnany got through the operation just fine and she remains cancer-free.
In an April 2020 appearance on Fox Business' Trish Regan Primetime, Kayleigh
McEnany mentioned what she believed to be the, quote, "awful presidency of President Obama,"
which is not exactly a new sentiment for this White House press secretary.
McEnany's college years coalesced with that of the Barack Obama presidency. Already a staunch
conservative, McEnany didn't care for the progressive, democratic commander-in-chief.
According to USA Today, 2012 saw McEnany post several tweets supporting the birther movement,
the alleged idea that the African-American president was not a natural-born U.S. citizen,
and thus not qualified to occupy the Oval Office.
In one such tweet, which carried the hashtag, "#ObamaTVShows," McEnany wrote,
"How I Met Your Brother - Never mind, forgot he's still in that hut in Kenya."
These days, Kayleigh McEnany is all-in on Donald Trump. However, she's a relative latecomer to
the bandwagon. Not only did she support different Republican candidates, she also spoke out against
Trump when he was a primary candidate during the 2016 election. McEnany told CNN in 2015,
"Donald Trump has shown himself to be a showman. I don't think he's a serious candidate."
According to The New York Times, McEnany got on board with Trump's
candidacy after a conversation with a Kirkland & Ellis law firm colleague.
After mentioning that her preferred picks for the GOP nomination were Marco Rubio,
Jeb Bush, and Ted Cruz, Michael Marcantonio predicted that Trump would win out, adding that,
quote, "if a smart, young, blond Harvard graduate" is interested in pursuing a career
as a pundit and cable news talking head, she would be wise to be an early backer of Donald Trump's.
While being on Donald Trump's side often means answering hard-hitting questions from persistent
reporters, Kayleigh McEnany has never had a problem showing her support for the president.
As the official White House mouthpiece, McEnany rarely minces words or speaks vaguely,
but promised in her first briefing,
"I will never lie to you, you have my word on that."
In February 2020, while still serving as campaign press secretary,
McEnany told Fox Business' Trish Regan Primetime,
"We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here."
Among other claims during her first White House briefing that May, she responded to
accusations that Trump mishandled the pandemic response by dismissing scientific reports,
alleging that President Trump, quote, "has always sided on the side of data."
During nationwide anti-police brutality protests the following month,
the Trump administration faced major backlash after employing tear gas
and non-deadly ordnance to disperse non-violent protesters so POTUS could have a photo-op in
front of a Washington, D.C. church. McEnany defended the action, likening Trump's decision
to U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill's leadership during World War II by saying:
"We've seen presidents and leaders across the world who have had leadership moments
and very powerful symbols that were important for a nation to see at any
given time to show a message of resilience and determination."
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