Bridget's Reviews > For Such a Time as This: My Faith Journey through the White House and Beyond

It’s difficult to understand how a well educated, hardworking young woman like Kayleigh McEnany can reconcile the strong Christian beliefs she professes to hold as a follower of Jesus with the positions, policies, words, and actions of her beloved boss, Donald Trump. She clearly works hard and loves her family, including her young daughter. When her daughter is old enough, will she understand her mother’s support for a man whose leadership style showed he believed: that people don’t matter (unless they can help you ‘win’); apologizing or admitting a mistake is weakness; everything is about you; compassion is a flaw; you must demonize and/or fear those who don’t look like you; that women are less worthy of respect; that it’s ok to cheat or lie in order to win; whiteness is superior; your convictions are for sale; laws don’t apply to you; and when in doubt, lie? Ms. McEnany protested the election of Clinton at age 8, and started listening to Rush Limbaugh shortly thereafter (and that’s who her co-cheerleaders got to listen to when they rode with her to cheer practice). Maybe she will raise her daughter not to think about or worry about these pesky questions. I hope that won’t be the case.

If you are familiar with McEnany’s tenure as press secretary, this is the book you would expect it to be. Heavy on colorful descriptions of her wardrobe choices, praise from and interactions with her hero boss (“Kayleigh, you’re great”), and positively spun (and carefully selected) anecdotes about a few of the events during her short tenure as the press secretary for the Trump White House during 2020. She praises Trump’s churlish performance at the chaotic first debate, describes his bizarre Bible photo op after ordering the clearing of Lafayette Square as him ‘proudly displaying the Bible’, and describes his ‘jesting and fun personality’.

There are also quite a few references to the unfair questions and focus of the media (maybe Ms. McEnany has forgotten Fox News, her previous and current employer?). Shouldn’t a press secretary understand that in a system of government like ours, the leader works for and answers to the people- even (especially!)- the hard and uncomfortable questions- and that the free press asks those questions on our behalf. Aren’t we glad that we aren’t dependent upon state sponsored media (like the people of Russia or China)?

Even at the time of writing this book (published 2021), Kayleigh McEnany was still all in on the cult of Trump, despite the cognitive dissonance between many of the positions he and his administration allowed and stood for, and her love for the One who was the inspiration for the scripture references throughout her book.

If you can ignore this, as well as all the presidential firing by tweet, demands for loyalty to him above truth, strong arming, failed lawsuits, lack of credible evidence, and the Trump appointees like Bill Barr, Chris Krebbs, Republican Secretaries of State, Republican appointed judges, et. all who have told us that Trump truly lost this election, or if you’d rather not get to the bottom of who was behind Jan 6 (all those Trump allies taking the 5th! What’s THAT about?) then you’ll probably really enjoy this book. It’s a NYT bestseller, after all.