Exclusive First Interview — New RNC Spokeswoman: Whole GOP Needs to Get Behind Trump and Listen to American People

Kayleigh McEnany speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in N
Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Kayleigh McEnany, formerly of CNN and now the Republican National Committee’s new spokeswoman, joined SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Tuesday’s Breitbart News Daily to stress the importance that Republicans unify behind President Trump’s agenda.

Marlow praised the RNC’s choice by praising McEnany for her ability to communicate with “super brainiacs,” thanks to her Harvard Law education, and also “speak to the regular public,” which is “increasingly skeptical of the establishment media.”

“I want to communicate directly with the American people. You know what that means? It means going out and actually talking to the people,” said McEnany.

“I’ve traveled the country for the better part of the first half of this year, and man, I’ve got to tell you – I came across someone in Nevada who is a Democrat voter, who didn’t vote on President Trump in the election, but he told me, ‘The negative coverage that I see day in and day out, not giving this president a chance, not giving the choice of the American people a chance, has compelled me to actually give him a chance despite not voting for him,’” she recalled.

“That’s encouraging. When you go talk to the people, you hear a very different story than what you’re hearing on the mainstream media,” she said.

McEnany said one of her most difficult challenges at CNN was “trying to break through the narrative that was being sown.”

“What’s the narrative being sown? Look at Media Research Center and their reporting. Three hundred fifty three minutes on Russia in five weeks in the mainstream media. Seventeen minutes on health care,” she noted. “So you’re sitting there, oftentimes outnumbered, most of the time – it’s not all the time – and you just want to speak to the issues the American people care about. You just want to talk about the economy and Obamacare and Neil Gorsuch and just some of the things going on. Breaking through that narrative, the negativity being sown, I think was the hardest part.”

“You know, we had some success at times,” she reflected. “That is the key, I think, to this presidency winning a second term is just getting out there, what President Trump’s doing, what Republicans are doing. That was the most challenging part, I think, of it all.”

“I think a big part of my year-and-a-half at CNN was just wanting to give the CNN viewer the other side of the story – wanting to give them a perspective that, in earnest, they probably hadn’t heard,” she said.

“In terms of moving forward, I want to be a part of this fight,” said McEnany. “I want to look my future kids in the eye and say, ‘You know what? I was a part of President Trump’s successful way forward, and putting conservative populist policies forward, and successfully making this country a better place for the American people or the American workers first. I don’t know that I’d be able to look my kids in the eye one day if I didn’t take this opportunity and say, ‘Your mom was part of the fight.’ That, to me, was my driving force.”

“Where can I serve? I think I served the better part of the year at CNN, giving that alternative perspective, but it was time to move forward and join arms with my fellow Republicans, and Republican populists really, out there – the new wave of people who have been brought into this party by President Trump – and fight for these policies,” she said.

McEnany said the Republican Party’s new populist spirit flows from understanding that President Trump’s election means “the American people want to be heard.”

“When I say ‘conservative populism,’ it’s not some new conservatism,” she elaborated. “Really, it’s just listening when the American people say, ‘Hey, maybe right there, maybe we need to re-evaluate that, maybe to re-evaluate free trade. NAFTA didn’t work so well. Maybe we need to look at TPP. This isn’t a great idea, even though doctrinal conservatism previously might have suggested TPP was the way to go.”

“President Trump listened to the American people. President Trump listened, and that’s what it’s about. It’s just hearing them out,” she said. “When a policy definitively is not working, and it’s careless to the American worker, then you make a change. That’s what you recognized over at Breitbart very early on. That’s what President Trump recognized, and that’s why he’s sitting in 1600 Pennsylvania. The Republican Party recognizes he’s the leader of our party.”

McEnany said her reception at the Republican National Committee has been “very welcoming.”

“It was so heartening to see that this party, that the RNC, is staunchly behind this president,” she enthused. “They realize that for our party to succeed, that means the president must succeed.”

“They’re very open to Trump’s agenda,” she reported. “They are the tailwind behind it. I’ve had nothing but a very welcome embrace. It’s very encouraging to see that the party apparatus is fully behind the president. In order to win in 2018, in order to win four years from now, we all have to stick together. What I’ve found is, going into the RNC, we are together. What “together” means is standing behind this president full throttle.”

Marlow noted that as RNC spokeswoman, McEnany will be called upon to mediate public disputes with such anti-Trump Republicans as Sens. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Ben Sasse (R-NE). He pointed out that some factions within the GOP are “quite bitter and hostile towards the president.”

“We have a wealth of voices in the Republican Party,” McEnany replied. “There’s no doubt about that. That’s kind of one of the things that’s the beauty of the Republican Party: we welcome everyone’s viewpoint.”

“Look, we have to stand behind this president,” she emphasized. “Look at Obamacare. We made a promise to the American people. We have to come together. Especially, you know, you see Aetna has already announced they’re going to drop out of the Obamacare exchanges in 2018. As this law crumbles, it means we have to come together.”

“I welcome alternative voices, but look, these Republicans and the senators who have stood against Obamacare, at least publicly but then in their votes did not, they’ve got to come around,” she argued. “This law is crumbling, and, to me, that’s a microcosm of the diversity of viewpoints within the Republican Party, which we welcome, but that need to come together because, at the end of the day, when you make a promise, it must materialize into results and successes and better outcomes for the American people.”

McEnany predicted that “ultimately, the election will be determined by having successes on behalf of the American people,” and that can only happen if congressional Republicans and the White House work together.

Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Eastern.

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