Former President and current White House candidate Donald Trump was savaged by right-wing critics Wednesday after he dissed his former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany as “milktoast.”
Trump, 76, turned on McEnany, now a Fox News contributor, late Tuesday after he said she undersold his Iowa polling lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during a segment on “Outnumbered,” which McEnany co-hosts.
“Kayleigh ‘Milktoast’ [sic] McEnany just gave out the wrong poll numbers on FoxNews [sic],” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, misspelling “milquetoast.”
“I am 34 points up on DeSanctimonious, not 25 up. While 25 is great, it’s not 34,” he added. “She knew the number was corrected upwards by the group that did the poll. The RINOS & Globalists can have her. FoxNews [sic] should only use REAL Stars!!!”
McEnany, 35, served as White House press secretary from April 2020 until the end of Trump’s term, after being a staunch defender of the 45th president in cable news appearances.
“Attacking Kayleigh McEnany is insane. She was one of the best press secretaries ever,” “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade said Wednesday morning before pointing out that McEnany was ” an analyst now. She doesn’t work for any campaign.”
“Imagine being so immature as to attack your former press secretary, who was nothing if not loyal, for allegedly misquoting a poll number,” tweeted Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume.
“This nonsense from Trump is a disgrace,” tweeted Trump’s former deputy director of communications Matt Wolking, who now works with a political committee that raises funds for DeSantis.
“[McEnany] slayed the fake news hoaxers and the liberal media activists day in and day out for years. She took countless arrows defending him and she was great at it.”
Jenna Ellis, a former Trump legal adviser, also weighed in on McEnany’s behalf.
“I will simply leave this here for when people ask why I and *many* others didn’t return for 2024,” she tweeted.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who has endorsed DeSantis for president, trolled Trump Tuesday night while taking a dig at the debt ceiling deal between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden in an interview with McEnany as she filled in on “The Ingraham Angle.”
“Everything that we’re seeing out of … this deal hatched this weekend is pretty milquetoast, if that word might mean something to you,” Roy said. The former White House press secretary did not acknowledge the comment.
In April, Trump reshared a McEnany post that praised one of his interviews, but took a dig at her encouragement of DeSantis to throw his hat in the ring two months before.
“I guess Kayleigh is no longer speaking so favorably about DeSanctimonious now that his Polls are shot!,” her former boss wrote on Truth Social.
It was unclear which specific poll was being discussed Tuesday.
Trump’s average lead nationally was at 33 points Wednesday, according to aggregator FiveThirtyEight.
An Emerson College poll released last week had up him 42 points in the Hawkeye State.
