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5 tweets from the new Republican Party spokesperson that are very awkward now

Kayleigh McEnany moved from CNN to the RNC to produce "real news."

CREDIT: CNN screengrab
CREDIT: CNN screengrab

The new spokesperson for Republican National Committee used her Twitter account to push the racist conspiracy theory that Barack Obama isn’t an American citizen.

Back in 2012, Kayleigh McEnany repeatedly suggested that Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery and he was actually born in Kenya.

McEnany used her account to promote conspiracy theories on a variety of topics. Shortly before the 2012 election, she tweeted out a misleading story from a right-wing conspiracy site that suggested Obama was taking money from Osama bin Laden.

That same year, she shared a story suggesting Obama is merely “a black man of convenience.”

The following year, McEnany told feminists to “pack up, go home, and find a new cause.”

The elevation of a former birther to the role of Republican National Committee spokesperson comes a day after Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) criticized his party for not doing more to shut down conspiracy theories about Obama.

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“I wish we had, as a party would’ve stood up for example when the birtherism thing was going along,” Flake said Sunday on Meet the Press. “A lot of people did stand up, but not enough. That was particularly ugly.”

Donald Trump’s public embrace of the birtherism vaulted him to political prominence. During the presidential campaign, Trump refused to apologize for pushing the conspiracy theory, and instead patted himself on the back for getting Obama to produce his birth certificate.

“I say nothing,” Trump said during the first presidential debate after he was asked if he would apologize to Obama, “because I was able to get him to produce [his birth certificate]. He should have produced it a long time before. I say nothing.”

McEnany comes to the RNC from CNN, where she worked as a paid Trump defender. At various points during her CNN tenure, McEnany defended Trump after a video recording of him bragging about groping women was released (“He said he starts to kiss a woman and then they let him do X, Y, or Z. That implies consent,” she said), claimed the Confederate flag represents “southern pride,” made demonstrably false claims about legal protections for transgender people enabling men to be sexual predators, and said that asking Trump to divest from his business before he became president would be “depriving his children of their livelihood.”

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On Sunday — the day after she announced her departure from CNN — McEnany hosted a show on Trump’s Facebook page that was billed as “real news.”

In a statement introducing her as the new RNC spokesperson, RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said McEnany’s “wealth of experience will be invaluable to the RNC as we continue to support President Trump and build on our majorities in Congress as we head into 2018.”