Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany said Donald Trump’s widely criticized proposal for a U.S. takeover of Gaza was actually an example of the president “playing four-dimensional chess.”
McEnany, who was White House press secretary in Trump’s first administration, said on “Outnumbered” Wednesday that the media had been in “freakout” mode over the president’s comments.
Journalists shouldn’t take what Trump says seriously, she suggested, because the president might not mean what he says.
“They haven’t learned the lesson yet. And the lesson is this: Maybe Trump is not trying to take Gaza. Maybe this is a grand part of a negotiation to get Iran to come to the table,” she said.
“My lesson to the media, this one line I wish they would take: President Trump is playing four-dimensional chess. You all are playing checkers,” she added.
Trump suggested Tuesday that displaced Palestinians in Gaza be resettled elsewhere and proposed that the U.S. “take over” the war-ravaged territory and redevelop it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
His remark prompted backlash and confusion, even from some of his Republican allies. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called the idea “problematic.” and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said the U.S. has “no business contemplating yet another occupation.”
Commentators on social media found McEnany’s interpretation to be a little too charitable.
“Kayleigh has invented a new kind of media criticism where you pretend Trump’s Gaza proposal wasn’t actually serious (because that would require actually defending it) and then call the press stupid for taking him at his word,” wrote Mediaite Editor-In-Chief Aidan McLaughlin.
See that reaction and others below.
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