BUCK: We are very pleased to be joined by our friend Kayleigh McEnany. She’s a former White House press secretary under President Trump, cohost of Fox’s Outnumbered — a fantastic show which I’ve enjoyed doing very much as has Clay — author of For Such a Time as This: My Faith Journey Through the White House and Beyond. New book out. Kayleigh, great to have you.

MCENANY: Hey, great to join you, Buck and Clay, in the great, late Rush Limbaugh’s former hours. He was a big inspiration of mine, and it’s great to join the two people who have taken over the reins.

BUCK: Thank you so much, Kayleigh. So, I gotta ask you first about what happened in front of Fox News. Huge Christmas tree burned down, effectively, by somebody who is clearly disturbed, clearly has problems. There were issues with him even a few days before this. They say he’s emotionally unwell; he’s committed crimes in the past.

We’re talking about what’s leading to the huge nationwide surge in cities coast to coast of murders and then there’s also property crimes. There’s mass theft occurring, retail theft occurring. This is a guy who’s already, Kayleigh — he burned the Fox Christmas tree down, he’s already — out on bail.

MCENANY: Yeah, and he’s clearly disturbed. And when he was coming out of the courtroom after being already out after this happening, he denied he committed the arson. He shouted obscenities at reporters and then he asked them for a cigarette, and he shouted something to the effect of “the moms that want to rape their (bleep) daughters,” they set it on fire?

This is a deranged individual. It’s someone whose father said he was mentally ill and he can’t control him and he’s out on the streets! And, Buck, it’s like watching something play out in slow motion where you see what happened in Waukesha, and we hope this guy doesn’t do anything violent.

But you see in Waukesha the same thing where someone gets out on bail and the worst thing that could possibly happen does, where you have people who die at a parade celebrating Christmas. It’s like watching this play out time and time again, and knowing it is indeed preventable if you didn’t have these liberal creeps who just let these guys back out on the streets.

CLAY: Kayleigh, appreciate you joining us. This is Clay. I gotta wonder, when you watch Jen Psaki and hear White House press briefings, how much different does she get treated than you did, and how glaring is — I would imagine — that difference to you? What do you notice the most?

MCENANY: Oh, Clay, it’s really interesting to watch. In my new book, For Such a Time as This:  My Faith Journey Through the White House and Beyond, I actually do a question comparison where I’m asked, “Why would President Trump hire people who are dumb as a rock?” versus Jen Psaki who was asked about the White House cat.

That’s not parody. She actually was asked about the White House cat and a biting incident with the White House dog. Her first briefing she was asked… I mean, this just… I couldn’t believe what I was watching. She was asked, “How does it feel for Joe Biden to walk into the Oval Office? He’s been waiting for this for so long.”

These are actual questions being asked. It is total softball — and still she doesn’t always seem to bring her facts. She has mistruths like “Republicans want to defund the police” and “no Americans are stranded in Afghanistan.” And there’s no accountability in the aftermath of those complete and total falsehoods. Those are two of many.

BUCK: Speaking to Kayleigh McEnany, former White House press secretary under President Trump. New book out, For Such a Time as This: My Faith Journey Through the White House and Beyond. Kayleigh, the Biden administration doesn’t have a lot to point to if really anything to point to that is, could we say, a rhetorical victory lap, right?

There’s not a lot of that they can say, “We’ve done a good job on this. This is why you voted for us,” and they’re going into a midterm. All the data supports this right now, right? The Hispanic vote is basically 50-50 between Democrat and Republican right now. People wish they had voted for Trump who actually voted for Biden the last election by pretty stunning numbers.

We’re seeing this all across the board. Independents think Biden’s doing a bad job on the economy, on immigration, all of this. What are your expectations for what this White House is going to try to do in order to stop the political bleeding, so to speak, going into the midterm? What should we be ready for them to say?

MCENANY: Well, I think we see it. It’s no facts, no footnotes, nothing of the sort, but just convincing their media lapdogs to come running back to their lap and say, “All is well and good,” start parroting the talking points on the chief of staff Ron Klain’s Twitter feed. If you want a case study or a master class — to use Hillary’s, I guess, new term that she’s teaching.

If you want a master class in delusion, go to the chief of staff’s Twitter feed. You have abysmal jobs numbers come out, and then he comes out and says the jobs numbers are actually good, because I guess unemployment ticked down by a 10th of a percentage even though we vastly underpaced expectations. You know, he says, “You should be saying, ‘Thank you, Joe Biden.'”

This all comes after Afghanistan and rampant inflation and the polling is showing that Americans notice it. That’s what they’ll try to do. They’re not going to succeed. And this new Wall Street Journal poll that came out that you referenced. Being tied among Hispanic voters was fascinating and huge victory for Republicans.

But when you look at the issues of importance, number one is immigration; number two, economy; number three, inflation; number four, health care. Health care is where the Democrats succeed. It is now a marginalized issue in comparison to others, and that is why you wind up having immigration one economy two. It looks a whole lot like what we saw in 2015, 2016 when a man named Donald Trump took everyone by surprise and won the election because the liberals told us no one cared about immigration.

CLAY: Kayleigh, people have lost their mind on many different issues, but what we’re starting to see is some of this pushback. And we started the show today with a story that I know you’ve talked about and paid some attention to. University of Pennsylvania has a transgender swimmer who is now threatening to set all-time records for NCAA women’s swimmers.

We’ve got at OutKick piece, a couple of different of those swimmers who are now speaking out and telling their story. These women swimmers think it’s totally ridiculous. What is the spin for…? We were talking earlier about Joe Biden may be asked about whether he thinks transgender swimmers should be able to compete like this against women.

What’s the White House spin, and what do you think the nation as a whole thinks about the idea? I know you’ve got a pro athlete that you married. What do you think the nation thinks about as a whole when it comes to men getting to choose to compete against women by changing their gender?

MCENANY: I think there’s a collective eye roll that our young women who work hard… I have a sister who was a female athlete in the SEC at University of Florida. She was a hurdler, and it’s a lot of work. It’s tough. It’s grueling. And the idea that you would have to compete against someone who’s biologically different from you?

I mean, that is scientific. They are biologically different. It is a different gender. And that all of your hard work is for naught, because you just simply cannot compete on the same level. It’s devastating for women, it’s devastating for girls’ sports. I was looking at OutKick, some of the great work you guys have done on this issue, and the fact that you have a UPENN female swimmer who has been trounced by a transgender athlete who has come into these races?

She has to speak out on condition of anonymity for fear of future employment. Liberals have created this eggshell culture where you cannot speak out against transgender athletes in women’s sports, where you cannot decry critical race theory or you’re a lunatic, where you cannot lock criminals up. They have created this kind of tinderbox of cultural issues that they think they’re on the right side of because it’s woke culture.

But that will ultimately come back to backfire. We saw the same thing in 2016, where you couldn’t talk about immigration, or you were a racist. You couldn’t talk loudly and profess conservatism, or we would decry you falsely and defamatorily as a white supremacist as they tried to do to Donald Trump. They created that same cultural tinderbox, and I do think it is backfire ’cause most commonsense Americans just say, “Hey, this doesn’t seem all that fair.”

BUCK: We’re speaking to Kayleigh McEnany, former White House press secretary under President Donald Trump. Kayleigh, I just mentioned the man’s name. I know a lot of people ask and a lot of people wonder just what’s your take right now on the likelihood — we know it’s not a certainty; we know the man hasn’t announced, but the likelihood — that Donald J. Trump may give it another go?

MCENANY: I’m gonna take a very reserved guess and say 110% he’s going to run. I can’t imagine a scenario when he doesn’t. I get the sense he’s rather rearing and ready to go back out there. That being said, we’ll see what he decides after the midterm elections. But one great thing about our party is we have a very deep bench. I’m from Florida.

Ron DeSantis is a total, complete rock star; I think he’ll be president one day. I don’t know when that will be, but one day I think he will be. We’ve got Tim Scott. There so many others. Pompeo. Mike Pence is great. We have so many thought leaders in our party, and you look at the left and Joe Biden, if he doesn’t run, you’ve got Kamala waiting in the wings?

Okay. Great. I’ll take my chances against her. Buttigieg? Sure. I’ll take my chances against him. I guess that’s the best they’ve got. I even heard this morning on Fox & Friends First they were saying, “Maybe even Hillary Clinton could throw her hat back in the ring.” Please, please do. Kamala-Hillary? I would love a ticket like that. We’ve got a deep bench, and I think Trump runs. So, we’ll see.

CLAY: When do you think…? That would be awesome, I know, for many of our listeners, if Trump runs. When do you think he would go about selecting a vice-presidential candidate, and what would you expect him to consider when he made that choice? Because, as you said, there is a really deep bench. But given the fact that he could only be president for one more term, that would be a default, theoretically, 2028, massive favorite to be the nominee. Who do you think would make the most sense?

MCENANY: I think President Trump has gut instincts that always lead him to the right choice there, and he did mention Ron DeSantis a few months ago. I think that’d be a fantastic choice. I think that that would set him up nicely for a 2028 run. But, you know, that being said, I hate to lose him from my great state of Florida. Of course, he’s governor to 2026 if he wins this cycle — and I do believe he will.

I don’t see a chance for anyone else. But I also like someone like Tim Scott. I think that Tim Scott brings to this party a face, a commitment to his Lord and Savior that he brought out quite vocally in his State of the Union rebuttal. Isn’t it interesting…? It wasn’t a State of the Union rebuttal, rather. A rebuttal to the national address, first year of a presidency. That’s what’s it’s called.

His rebuttal for the first time I can remember in modern political history was a raving success. Normally we laugh at the rebuttals. His was a success because he’s forthright, honest, truthful, and faithful — and, hey, DeSantis would be great. Tim Scott would be great. There’s a whole lot of choices out there that would be a great running mate if Trump decides to run.

BUCK: Kayleigh, thanks so much for being with us. Always great to talk to you, and everybody should check out For Such a Time as This: My Faith Journey Through the White House and Beyond, Kayleigh’s new book, which is out. Kayleigh, thanks so much!

MCENANY: Thanks so much, Buck and Clay. Have a good one.

CLAY: Appreciate you, Kayleigh.