What Did Kayleigh McEnany Do Before She Was Associated With Donald Trump?

Before Kayleigh McEnany, the former White House press secretary for the Trump administration, became a strident political defender of Donald Trump, she was a regular law student pursuing a role in television, making appearances between classes on Fox Business' midday and primetime programming, per University of Miami School of Law. McEnany's known to never concede and apologize, a sensibility that eventually put her on former president Donald Trump's radar. According to The Washington Post, McEnany even defended Trump once for retweeting a doctored video that showed him body-slamming a WWE fighter with the CNN logo superimposed over the fighter's face. 

In her 2018 book, "The New American Revolution: The Making of a Populist Movement," McEnany described herself as "that blond girl passionately advocating for then candidate Donald Trump proudly wearing my gold cross." The cable host known for her "glossy" looks was among the youngest to ever hold her position in the White House before signing on to work for Fox News as a commentator after Trump left office. Known for her fierce on-air personality, liberal commentator Van Jones once snapped at McEnany on election night 2016, saying, "You need to back off," per CNN, though he later apologized and praised her. (The two are friends off-screen.) 

Let's take a look at the mother, wife, host, author, and political commentator's rise to the spotlight.

In 2010, Kayleigh McEnany graduated from Georgetown University and quickly found herself immersed in politics and the media — her two career passions. She joined the "Mike Huckabee Show" as a producer where she gained three years of practice learning to write critical, political questions (per the University of Miami School of Law), even writing the questions for Huckabee's interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and producing interviews in London for the royal wedding in 2011. The political commentator said it afforded her "once-in-a-lifetime experiences," but she ultimately moved on to study law. "The beautiful thing about media, law and politics is that they all feed into each other," said McEnany about her career. "I have always been fascinated by politics and political commentary. Interestingly, besides me, no one in my family has a specific interest in politics or comes from a political background."

McEnany graduated from Harvard Law School in 2016 and assisted as a commentator at CNN before signing on to work as the former president's final press secretary in April 2020 (per Hollywood Life). She began voicing her support for Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential primaries, often championing him in frequent television appearances. In 2018, she even published a book on the movement behind Trump's 2016 election win. It's also known that McEnany was the Republican National Committee spokesperson until February 2019. That's when Trump's reelection campaign hired her to be their spokesperson.

Kayleigh McEnany isn't shy about sharing her opinion and fired back at Donald Trump before she became a fierce advocate for him, including when he made critical statements while announcing his campaign in 2015, when he said Mexican "rapists" were crossing the United States southern border. In an interview with CNN, Trump said, "Some are good and some are rapists and some are killers. We don't even know what we're getting." He also added that the U.S. was becoming a "dumping ground" for Mexico's worst citizens (per Los Angeles Times). 

McEnany was quick to clarify her stance after Trump's "derogatory" remarks about Mexican immigrants. "I want to make it clear, I don't support what Donald Trump said," she clarified (per CNN). 

Also in 2015, McEnany spoke critically on a series of panels about the then-presidential candidate for CNN and Fox Business. "Donald Trump has shown himself to be a showman," she told CNN. "I don't think he is a serious candidate. It's not within the mainstream of the candidates." In retrospect, it seems her assessment was rather off-base, but it ultimately worked to her advantage.