Fox News host and former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said current White House Deputy Press Secretary and Senior Communications Adviser Andrew Bates gave the worst answer to a question (about WH cocaine) she’s ever heard from someone in that position.
Kayleigh made the comments on Fox and Friends with Griff Jenkins, Brian Kilmeade, and Steve Doocy.
KILMEADE: So Griff is that, that’s a place they’re saying you have to be pretty much a credentialed — you have a reason to be there. There’s no tourists going through that area. Is that safe to say?
JENKINS: Visitors! Yes. That’s very fair to say. In fact, Kayleigh can even weigh in on this. Even as the press, as a card-carrying press badge person, I don’t go over there. This is the executive West Wing entrance, again, where you see the Vice President, secretaries come and go. And when they first come in, assuming they’re there for that immediate, you know, Situation Room secure briefing, this is the cubbyhole they would put their devices into.
So this would not be a place where, you know, Aunt Betty from Omaha would come to see the White House for the first time and drop her phone.
KILMEADE: Because we were blaming Aunt Betty for a while but now we can’t. Griff, thank you very much.
MCENANY: So let me illuminate this for folks.
So, you walk into the West exec entrance there, and I talked to a number of former colleagues of mine last night to just clarify the layout, get my memory up to par.
There’s two sets of double doors. There are cubbies that tourists would walk by.
These cubbies are not utilized by White House staff. They are utilized by tourists.
These are the ones when you walk inside West exec.
JENKINS: If a staff member is giving a tour to a friend.
MCENANY: Exactly. They’re like little mailboxes, they’re pretty ornate.
They do have a lock on them. So that’s the entrance of West Executive.
You get to the Secret Service officer who’s sitting there and then, to Griff’s point, you keep going, you get to the White House mess.
It’s a pretty short walk.
You turn.
You get to the Situation Room, and that is where staff would set down their phones.
You’d set it down before you go into this secure location.
KILMEADE: Or your coke.
MCENANY: There are no cameras. No cameras, I was told, in the West Wing.
So they’re having to rely on cameras outside of the West Wing.
But interesting, one point that was emphasized to me over and over again is the Secret Service.
No one is covering for the White House.
So any sinister allegations out there that the Secret Service is covering for the White House?
Absolutely not. These are the best of the best.
Just final point.
Andrew Bates saying I can’t answer a cocaine question because of the Hatch Act?
DOOCY: It’s ridiculous.
MCENANY: That is the single worst answer I have ever heard a press secretary give. Wow! Go back to 101.
.@KayleighMcEnany on at 12:04 p.m. on KJP’s waffling answers on the WH cocaine scandal: “Karine Jean-Pierre better be…on the phone w/Secret Service, better yet — go march down to their office…and get some answers b/c that is totally unacceptable. Get your story straight.” pic.twitter.com/LoSyioRete
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 7, 2023
