Politics

Jake Tapper: Kayleigh McEnany ‘Lies The Way That Most People Breathe’

CNN anchor Jake Tapper said Sunday that he wouldn’t put White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on air because she “lies the way that most people breathe.”

Tapper told CNN’s Brian Stelter that throughout President Donald Trump’s term, “you had to steel yourself for interviews with people that might misrepresent the facts.” The CNN anchor said that “once somebody proved themselves to be a liar, I just stopped booking them.”

“There were some people that are … just so mendacious, I just wouldn’t put them on air. Kayleigh McEnany, I never booked her. Jason Miller from the Trump campaign, I would never book him,” Tapper said. “I mean, these are people who just tell lies the way that most people breathe. There was no value in that.”

“I don’t view Kellyanne Conway the same way,” Tapper told Stelter during the video. “She was more of a filibusterer and a subject changer, I thought.”

“There is a big difference between somebody like Kayleigh McEnany, who … tells lies all the time. She can’t acknowledge reality. So, I’m just not going to put somebody like that on air,” Tapper told Stelter.

The White House and Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.