McEnany Struggles to Answer Whether Trump Was Kidding After He Said ‘Not Kidding’ About Testing: ‘The President Appreciates Testing’
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White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Tuesday struggled to explain President Donald Trump’s comment that he wasn’t kidding when he said he had ordered a reduction in coronavirus testing, telling reporters the president “appreciates testing.”
“The president said this morning that he was not kidding when he talked about slowing down testing,” an unnamed reporter noted during a press gaggle aboard Air Force One, according to a transcript of the exchange. “Do you want to revise anything you said yesterday about that or what other White House officials have said?”
Noting she “talked to the president about testing a lot today,” McEnany said Trump “has made it abundantly clear that he appreciates testing.”
“But what he was making was a serious point, and that’s why he said, ‘I don’t kid.’ He was noting he was making a serious point, but he was using sarcasm to do that at the rally. And the serious point he was making is that when you test more people, you identify more cases,” she added.
Trump said at a Saturday rally in Tulsa that he had ordered officials to slow down coronavirus testing to prevent infection rates from appearing higher. Asked whether he was serious, McEnany told reporters on Monday, “No, he has not directed that,” and explained the comments were “in jest.”
Asked about McEnany’s statement on Tuesday morning, Trump replied, “I don’t kid.”
“What’s indicative of the progress we’ve made is the fact that, per capita, we have fewer fatalities than Europe by a large margin,” McEnany added Tuesday afternoon. “So that’s the point he was making on testing.
