(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Former President Donald Trump chastised his former press secretary, Fox News analyst Kayleigh McEnany, for posting unfavorable poll numbers for Trump in the 2024 Republican primaries, Media Right News reported.
McEnany, who has vaguely signaled support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the past, cited an American Greatness poll suggesting that Trump is up 25 points in South Carolina, which Trump declared was wrong.
“Kayleigh ‘Milktoast’ McEnany just gave out the wrong poll numbers on FoxNews. I am 34 points up on DeSanctimonious, not 25 up,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
The term “milquetoast” derives from the name of a character in an obscure 1920s comic book and has come to mean someone who is “timid, meek, or unassertive”—hardly a fitting description for McEnany.
Trump’s use of the term set his unique spelling of it trending on Twitter.
I like to have milktoast with my covfefe
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) May 31, 2023
In his post, Trump went on to assert that he would be better off without the support of McEnany, who spent years defending him from the corporate media while in the White House.
“The RINOS & Globalists can have her,” Trump wrote. “FoxNews should only use REAL Stars!!!”
But some observers thought that Trump’s misspelling might not have been the biggest blunder in his post.
Not a good sign… McEnany was one of the best and most loyal members of the Trump administration. She has a new job now, and can't be an on-air surrogate for Trump, or any other candidate, without leaving Fox. A Trump character flaw that has persisted. https://t.co/5BBCcgvqiy
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) May 31, 2023
As the GOP primary picks up, DeSantis—who formally announced his candidacy last week—has unleashed a wave of attacks on Trump, blaming him for letting Americans suffer under COVID lockdowns.
“After Fauci’s lockdowns destroyed millions of lives, Donald Trump actually said Fauci ‘should be respected for the job’ he did,” DeSantis’s war room wrote on Twitter.
DeSantis also took shots at Trump for having softened his stances on important issues for conservatives.
”But when he’s taken Disney’s side against me, I just kind of wonder, like, okay, I get he wants to hit me, but don’t take the side of a multinational corporation that wants to sexualize kids,” DeSantis said.
He also noted that Trump has even given up on arguably his most successful policy in 2016: building a wall and keeping out illegal immigrants.
“He’s also hitting me against voting against immigration amnesty … So I’m not sure what his strategy is, but I think he’s taking positions that are a little bit different than four or five years ago.”
In response, Trump has claimed that DeSantis is in need of a “personality transplant.”