The United States is suffering under the weight of crises like the Coronavirus pandemic, which, throughout its duration, has killed what’s fast approaching 200,000 Americans and has left millions unemployed amidst the economic upheaval of trying to get the virus under control. That upheaval has been exacerbated, big time, by the president’s own consistent refusal to take the Coronavirus seriously — but the Trump administration seems far more interested in trying to score petty political points. This Thursday, at a White House press conference, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany opened the proceedings by playing a short video on loop that depicted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) inside a hair salon without a mask over her face.
Pelosi’s office has explained that she used the salon only after being informed by someone at the business that it would supposedly be in line with local Coronavirus-related restrictions for her to do so. Pelosi herself suggested that the incident was a “set-up” — and it’s worth noting that the salon’s owner did leak the video to Fox News. Furthermore: it’s abundantly clear that Pelosi has consistently taken the Coronavirus seriously. Months ago, the Democrat-led House passed a relief package worth trillions of dollars. In contrast, it took months for Trump to even publicly endorse wearing masks at all, which is a very basic step.
#NEW: Nancy Pelosi says she takes responsibility for trusting the word of a San Francisco hair salon that it was OK to come in for a solo visit — even though the city still does not allow indoor beauty services.
But the Speaker called Monday’s visit a “set-up”. (Per AP) 1/2
— Jennifer Franco (@jennfranconews) September 3, 2020
The Trump team has rarely ever cared about pushing Coronavirus-related business restrictions. This is all an act from McEnany! The Trump team, by all appearances, doesn’t care about logical consistency. They care about political points. “We have found Nancy Pelosi,” McEnany said as the video played in the background. “As you can see, we found Nancy Pelosi going into her hair salon. We will be playing the video on loop for all of you to see during the duration of this introduction.”
Kayleigh McEnany is playing a video of Pelosi entering a salon on loop during today's press briefing. Totally bonkers. pic.twitter.com/rqmD5PCDLU
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 3, 2020
After the Pelosi video debacle, McEnany followed up by refusing to directly answer the basic question of whether or not she acknowledges that it’s illegal to vote twice in the same election. Trump has now repeatedly insisted that his followers should try to vote twice in order to test the security of the system (which he falsely claims is faulty) and ensure that their their vote gets counted (which they don’t need to try to commit a crime to do!).
McEnany said:
‘The president does not condone unlawful voting. The president’s been very clear about this. Once again, I’m not surprised that the media’s taking the president out of context.’
Context doesn’t exactly salvage the president’s nonsense. He is asking his supporters to try and commit a crime in order to get around supposed systematic voting problems that he made up.
McEnany won't affirm that it's illegal to vote twice in the same election pic.twitter.com/MIarcVo365
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 3, 2020
