Kayleigh McEnany, the new White House press secretary, has criticized President Trump in the past, calling his remarks “racist,” “hateful,” and “not the American way,” CNN footage from 2015 reveals. McEnany condemned statements Trump made in 2015, when he was a presidential candidate, in which he said that some Mexican immigrants are “rapists.” “To me, a racist statement is a racist statement. I don’t like what Donald Trump said,” McEnany said on CNN. “Donald Trump has shown himself to be a showman, I don’t think he is a serious candidate,” adding, “I think it is a sideshow. It’s not within the mainstream of the candidates.” She also called it “unfortunate” and “inauthentic” to associate him with the Republican party. The press secretary changed course in 2016, securing herself as a vocal Trump defender. She later became a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee as well as for Trump’s re-election campaign. 

“That’s the problem with Donald Trump is he can't apologize for his own statement,” McEnany said on CNN in June 2015. “And not apologizing, he’s losing credibility on what is a credible issue.”