Former White House press secretary-turned-Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany gave her assessment on the state of the presidential race during the network’s election night coverage from New Hampshire.
It quickly incurred the wrath of her ex-boss.
After analyzing the latest polling data — and acknowledging that New Hampshire is a small sample size — McEnany called Tuesday night’s results “fairly good” for President Biden.
Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher documented how McEnany argued that Trump needs to focus on uniting the center-right coalition now that he’s the presumptive Republican nominee.
Fox News anchor Bret Baier kicked off the discussion, commenting on Trump’s victory speech.
“Kayleigh. You know, in the close, it seemed like the Trump campaign was pretty disciplined,” Baier began, according to the transcript. “They hit the immigration issue a lot at his rallies. And we saw his pitch at the town hall and the speech in Iowa.”
“This was a different speech. You know, he is a fighter. He punches back. He obviously didn’t like the speech he heard from Nikki Haley.”
“But he’s also, at some point has to get into general election, going after independents and maybe disaffected Democrats. And this speech probably wasn’t that,” Baier concluded.
“No, this speech was a speech to dispose of the last remaining competitor, if you could call it that,” McEnany replied. “She still significantly behind him. He’s pulling a majority support.”
She then offered her advice, “But to get her out of the race, I would suggest that adopting a general election tone is what you do at this point. And here’s why I say this.”
“This was actually a fairly good night for Joe Biden. When you look at our voter analysis, only 10% said ‘I would not vote for Joe Biden if he’s the nominee.’”
“He won a plurality of voters who said he was too old. He won a majority of voters who are upset about the Gaza war. So the divides in the Democrat Party, and this is a small sample size, but perhaps aren’t as stark as one would think.”
“But when you look at the Republican Party, 7 in 10 Nikki Haley voters said ‘I would not vote for Trump.’”
She reinforced her argument with polling from Iowa.
“There was a Des Moines Register poll. 43% said, no, I wouldn’t vote for Trump.”
“If I’m Trump, I sit back and I exclusively focus on the general election. I take the posture of a presumptive nominee. I focus on number one, uniting the party and number two, winning the independents, which Nikki Haley won 55 to 39%. That’s what I would do.”
“Nikki Haley I mean, the closest margin is 30% in the states ahead. For all intents and purposes, he’s the presumptive nominee.”
The analysis received harsh criticism from the GOP front-runner:
That did not go down well with her old boss, who raged on social media that she’s a “RINO” and told her to “Save your advice for Nikki!”
McEnany’s commentary elicited strong responses elsewhere online:
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