Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Monday crowed about ex-President Donald Trump approving the sale of weapons to Ukraine, while conveniently ignoring him withholding nearly $400 million of aid to the country in an effort to help his reelection campaign.
Appearing on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, the former Trump administration official reacted to the Ukrainian military’s ability to frustrate Russian efforts to take Kyiv. Despite these successes, according to U.S. intelligence, Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely planning on encircling and then taking the capital city, setting up the potential for a protracted engagement.
Other countries, Hannity said, are “trying to get in late in the game” when it comes to delivering weapons. “I imagine that the next offensive is probably going to be extremely severe. I hope I’m wrong,” he added.
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“I hope you’re wrong, too,” McEnany replied. “But guess who did provide that lethal weaponry long before that manifesto was out. It was President Trump who did that! He gave the Ukrainians weaponry. President Biden was behind the 8-ball.”
In 2018, Trump did sign off on a $47 million sale of 210 Javelin anti-tank missiles and 37 launchers to Ukraine. But when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he wanted to buy more Javelins the following year, Trump withheld nearly $400 million in aid authorized by Congress while he pressured his counterpart to announce an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the Trump administration broke the law by withholding this aid. Trump was impeached for this, but ultimately acquitted by the GOP-controlled Senate.
None of this prevented McEnany from extolling her former boss, who earlier in the day also sought to puff up his role in the Ukrainian military’s impassioned show of resistance to the Russian attack.
"...[I]t was me that got Ukraine the very effective anti-tank busters (Javelins) when the previous Administration was sending blankets,” Trump said in a statement. "Let History so note!"
McEnany did her part in pushing this message. And it’s fair to say that neither she nor Trump will likely lose sleep over the fact that some necessary context was missing.
