Photographer Catches Topics in Kayleigh McEnany’s Briefing Binder: Goya, Obama, Hate, Golf, Mueller, Lies, LGBT and More
Photo credit: Jonathan Ernst, Reuters.
A Reuters photograph of White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s vast briefing binder offered a peek behind the curtain of the Trump administration’s messaging priorities.
Taken from the side of the White House briefing room podium, the photograph catches McEnany opening the book, exposing dozens of alphabetized tabs with short category names. During her tenure, McEnany has developed a reputation for flipping open her briefing book after a particularly confrontational question and reading verbatim from pre-written responses, which often included canned attacks on the press or praise from allies.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany flips through the topic headings in her binder during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S. July 16, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst #Reuters pic.twitter.com/8QFTgBKa06
— Jonathan Ernst (@j_ernst_DC) July 17, 2020
In the photo taken at Thursday’s White House briefing, McEnany’s tabs include a number evergreen topics, but several recent ones as well. “Covid” and “Test” as well as “PPE,” “Masks,” “CDC,” and “Cases” suggest a healthy amount of prepared remarks on the raging pandemic. But also included in the binder were more ephemeral topics, like “Goya” about the controversy over the Trump-led counter-backlash to a liberal boycott of the food company, “Mary” which, presumably, refers to the president’s niece and her damning tell-all book, and “Hogan,” which likely alluded to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s scathing Washington Post essay condemning Trump’s pandemic response. Also included were notable files on former President Barack “Obama,” as well as subjects used to frequently criticize Trump like “Golf,” “Russia,” “Hate,” and a misspelled “Meuller.”
But many of the tabs spoke to this White House’s favorite boogeymen, with categories such as “Media,” “Lies,” “China,” “BLM,” “Privil” suggesting white privilege, and one simply labeled “Absurd.” “Statues” was also included as was “LGBT.” Notably, one tab was labeled “Karl,” which might be an oppo brief against ABC News White House correspondent Jon Karl, who has frequently clashed with Trump at press conferences.
Finally, in what appeared to be the last tab, at the bottom of the book, was one labeled “Wins.”
