Donald Trump has long made it clear that he’s not above name-calling, so it didn’t exactly come as a surprise when he lashed out at his former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany (and now Fox personality) back in May 2023. However, to say it backfired would be an understatement, as an unfortunate misspelling had more people laughing at him than his target.
Trump’s tirade against McEnany began after the latter mistakenly reported that he was 25 points ahead of Ron DeSantis in the polls. Trump’s figures differed from that — and let’s just say he didn’t take McEnany’s misquote well. “Kayleigh ‘Milktoast’ McEnany just gave out the wrong poll numbers on FoxNews. I am 34 points up on DeSanctimonious, not 25 up. While 25 is great, it’s not 34. She knew the number was corrected upwards by the group that did the poll. The RINOS & Globalists can have her. FoxNews should only use REAL stars!!!” he wrote on Truth Social (via X). We aren’t sure “yikes” would suffice. Like we said, though, the most embarrassing part of the rant was Trump dubbing McEnany “Milktoast” when he meant to say “Milquetoast.”
While based on the idea that literal milk toast would make for a very weak meal, “Milquetoast” as a term is based on the comic character Caspar Milquetoast, whose shyness would hold him back from things like fetching his hat off the lawn if he saw a “Keep off the grass” sign, or shy away from taking calls because he’d overheard someone making fun of his name. As for the term that would best describe Trump’s mistake, that’s commonly referred to as a malapropism – ironically, a figure of speech also derived in part from a literary character. Now would be the appropriate time to google Mrs. Malaprop.
Many came to Kayleigh McEnany’s defense
That “Milktoast” blunder aside, it does bear mentioning that a number of public figures were quick to defend Kayleigh McEnany from Donald Trump’s rant. While the nastiness would have been uncalled for no matter who Trump was addressing, many took particular issue with the fact that McEnany had historically been in the former reality star’s corner.
Fellow Fox personality Brit Hume called Trump out on X, formerly Twitter, writing, “Imagine being so immature as to attack your former press secretary, who was nothing if not loyal, for allegedly misquoting a poll number.” Others who had previously worked with Trump shared similar sentiments. Matt Wolking, who had been in Trump’s communications team in 2020, shared on X that he’d found his former boss’s attack disgraceful. “She took countless arrows defending him and she was great at it,” he wrote. Then, there was fellow former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham. “He. WILL. Turn. On. You. There is only loyalty to HIM — not the country, the constitution, or anything/anyone else,” she posted on X. It wasn’t the first time the former press secretary called her ex-boss out for poor treatment of staffers. Quite the contrary, Grisham also spoke about Trump’s temper in her book “I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House.”
One person who didn’t respond to Trump’s criticism was McEnany herself. In fact, she’s gone on to praise him on a number of occasions since the “Milktoast” fail. That hasn’t exactly stopped Trump from further insults, however. See: The time he referred to her as “Birdbrain” on Truth Social. Perhaps Trump and McEnany’s fallout is one-sided, or perhaps she’s merely opting to stay above. Or, y’know, she’s a full-grown adult and acting like it.
