TAMPA, Fla. — A Tampa native is the new White House press secretary.
Kayleigh McEnany, 31, who had served as a Trump campaign spokeswoman, is replacing Stephanie Grisham in the press briefing room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. McEnany is the fourth press secretary at the White House since President Donald Trump took office.
According to the New York Times, McEnany is the first major move by incoming Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, a former representative of North Carolina.
McEnany is a graduate of Harvard Law School and was the national spokesperson for the Republican National Committee in 2019. She's also a former CNN contributor.
McEnany's husband is Rays pitcher Sean Gilmartin. According to a Tampa Bays Times profile on the couple from March, McEnany attended Academy of the Holy Names, and her family owns McEnany Roofing Company.
The Tampa native also said she's had Rays season tickets for almost 10 years.
On fact-checking website Politifact, McEnany has two checks on her name for comments made in 2017 and 2018. One was rated Mostly True and the other Half True.
Business Insider also wrote a profile on McEnany, saying she has gained recognition for going to bat for Trump on various cable news networks. She worked her way up through the conservative pundit ladder over the years after her first appearance on Fox News in 2011.
As Kenneth Vogel at the New York Times pointed out: Just weeks ago, she told Fox Business, "We will not see diseases like coronavirus come here."
As of late Tuesday morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there had been more than 330,000 COVID-19 cases in the United States and 8,910 deaths.
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