Former White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany attempted to pin the blame on Joe Biden for the rising murder rate across the country - but it backfired spectacularly.
McEnany was quick enough to tweet out a graph from The New York Times that showed the largest spike in murder rates (by 30 per cent) since the 1960s when federal records began.
Here is the original tweet she reshared:
Grim https://t.co/nFEJJ7914X pic.twitter.com/TW7IHt49H9
— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) September 22, 2021
Automatically assuming this spike had something to with the current president, she used the data to attack Biden and tweeted the graph with the caption “The U.S. murder rate under Joe Biden…”
However, there is just one slight problem with this... in a hurry to lambast Biden, McEnany misread the graph.
The data actually has nothing to do with Joe Biden since the graph stops at 2020 when he wasn’t president - and with this mistake, McEnany accidentally exposed how it was actually her boss at the time, Donald Trump, had overseen the spike in the murder rate during his time in office.
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People on Twitter were more than happy to highlight McEnany’s embarrassing error and her incorrect tweet soon began getting noticed.
After releasing her mistake, McEnany quickly deleted the tweet - but unfortunately for her, the internet never forgets, as people shared screenshots of the tweet they captured before McEnany got rid.
Kayleigh McEnany forgot who was president in 2020 even though she was working for him. pic.twitter.com/ccHGJfnEoh
— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) September 23, 2021
lmao, Kayleigh McEnany deleted this after realizing the big spike at the end was while Trump was President 😂 pic.twitter.com/F4V4XKgMzR
— Paul 👻 (@pablo_honey1) September 23, 2021
.@kayleighmcenany Thank you for kicking off my day with hearty laughter. pic.twitter.com/oA8S01Q1Xk
— Gary Legum (@GaryLegum) September 23, 2021
Kayleigh McEnany can delete her tweet, but the internet is forever. Donald J. Trump was the President for the whole of 2020, @kayleighmcenany pic.twitter.com/0Qn7DewYig
— KeanoTheDog (@judgeyourself99) September 23, 2021
Why did @kayleighmcenany delete this tweet? Because the huge increase in the murder rate actually happened in trump’s last year (not Biden’s first year) when she was press secretary. So I guess she doesn’t understand how to read a graphic. pic.twitter.com/fy7aUrMb7h
— Pete Souza (@PeteSouza) September 23, 2021
So, @kayleighmcenany has deleted this tweet, which showed 2020's spike in the murder rate under her then-boss President Trump. She falsely blamed Biden. She hasn't posted a correction or apologized to her followers. pic.twitter.com/zs4ypaOQSA
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 23, 2021
What do you even say here? This covers the period when she was the spokesman for Donald Trump, who was president last year. pic.twitter.com/i7goYTL439
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) September 23, 2021
So Kayleigh McEnany had to delete this tweet because she forgot trump was president in 2020.
— Mel the Enforcer (@Fah_Lo_Me) September 23, 2021
Anyone else want to forget? 🖐 pic.twitter.com/0MedSYp6p0
You often see temporal sleight-of-hand in credit claiming (e.g. the improving economy under one President was the result of policies by his predecessor) but this is the first time I've seen an administration blame his successor for bad outcomes that happened under their watch. pic.twitter.com/qMr9I0L43f
— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) September 23, 2021
Siri, what is a self own? @kayleighmcenany pic.twitter.com/jo4mHBPtmN
— Alfred Spellman (@AlfredSpellman) September 23, 2021
Despite the embarrassing error gaining attention, McEnany failed to acknowledge it herself.
After deleting the first tweet, she decided to tweet once more, this time taking aim at Democratic mayors and the movement to defund the police to blame them for the rising crime.
McEnany also remained adamant on claiming that Biden had “enabled this” - even though he did not hold an office of any kind in 2020.
From the White House podium in August 2020, I warned Defund would result in rising crime.
— Kayleigh McEnany (@kayleighmcenany) September 23, 2021
Sadly, I was right.
Biden you enabled this.
Defund, Democrat mayors, you own this!
The receipts ⬇️ https://t.co/bRiBZ8nqUp pic.twitter.com/iRtjBfgTiM
It’s not the first time, McEnany has got it wrong.
Back in February 2020, before she was the White House press secretary and before the Covid-19 pandemic affected the world, McEnany said “We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here [to America] during an appearance on Fox Business.
With an estimated 680,000 deaths in America over 18 months later, this clearly turned out not to be the case.
