Former WH Press Sec Ari Fleischer Dunks on KJP For Bringing ‘Big Book of Answers’ to Briefings, Somehow Forgets Kayleigh McEnany’s Binder

Photos by (L) Chip Somodevilla and (R) Alex Wong/Getty Images

Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer took a swipe at the current holder of the job, Karine Jean-Pierre, criticizing her for bringing a binder to press briefings — somehow neglecting to remember Kayleigh McEnany’s own very memorable binder moments.

Fleischer, who served in George W. Bush’s administration and currently works as a Fox News contributor and LIV Golf consultant, appeared on America Reports Wednesday, and was asked by anchor John Roberts about the Biden White House “struggling to find a coherent message” on issues like border security.

Roberts noted how another former Bush press secretary, Dana Perino, who also now works at Fox News, has said the Biden administration’s messaging is a “complete disaster.” Fleischer lamented how the press went “nuts” when Donald Trump’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer, overestimated the crowd size at the inauguration. “Who cares about crowd size?”

Roberts replied that he was there for that briefing with Spicer, and added that Spicer and Trump’s other press secretaries, including McEnany and Sarah Huckabee Sanders “took a tremendous amount of incoming, and yet it’s this White House that appears to be under siege.”

He then asked Fleischer about Jean-Pierre:

ROBERTS: I want to ask you about Karine Jean-Pierre’s big book of answers, or big binder of answers that she brings in to the briefing room with her every day. Who puts that together? Is it her, is it the policy shop? I don’t know how much of a chance she gets to look at it, because when she goes to it, it’s very often not very convincing what comes out of her mouth.

FLEISCHER: I had a big binder and I used it, if you recall, for maybe the first month I was in office. And then you really don’t need it anymore and it’s awkward to flip the pages. You know, if you’re in the meetings, you don’t need the big book. If you’re in the meetings, you heard it for yourself, you learned what the president said, and then you have the discretion go to the podium and know what to say and what not to say.

I don’t know where she gets her information from. But if she has to still rely on a book like that, something tells me she’s not in the meetings, so she doesn’t know, so she has to rely on what other people write for her to say.

That’s a really impossible job to fulfill if that’s how the job is set up. You have to be in the room and then you have to be fast on your feet and deal with the White House Press Corps. Easier in a Democratic administration than a Republican. But still, that’s the job.

ROBERTS: I spent a lot of time with you in that briefing room. You were good at your job.

Fleischer and Roberts were correct that Jean-Pierre usually brings a binder with her into the White House Briefing Room and will refer to it from time to time (as seen in several recent Mediaite posts here, here, here, here, and here).

What both of them oh-so-conveniently omitted or forgot or ran out of time to mention — we’ll refrain from speculating as to motive — was their Fox News colleague McEnany’s tenure at that White House podium, which included multiple headline-generating binder moments.

McEnany was appointed press secretary in April 2020, and frequently used a large binder in her briefings well after “maybe the first month” — the time period that Fleischer defined as when it was acceptable to rely on such a reference.

A July 2020 McEnany briefing went viral after a Reuters photographer captured an image of her binder complete with multicolored tabs with labels that included “Goya,” “Hate,” “Masks,” “Golf,” and “Lies.”

Watch above via Fox News.

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]