EVANSVILLE — President Donald Trump’s former press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, will headline this year’s Right to Life of Southwest Indiana annual banquet, an anti-abortion event in Evansville that annually attracts more than 2,000 people.
The banquet is set for 6 p.m. on Aug. 20 at the Old National Events Plaza.
McEnany, a Harvard Law School graduate, was one of the youngest individuals at 31 to serve as a White House press secretary when Trump named her to that position in 2020. She was also the Trump 2020 re-election campaign’s press secretary. A paid CNN political commentator during the 2016 presidential campaign, McEnany now works as host of Fox News’ “Saturday in America” television show.
The Right to Life of Southwest Indiana banquet drew more than 3,000 people when 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin and conservative author and commentator Candace Owens spoke in 2009 and 2021, respectively.
In April 2009, Palin, then Alaska’s governor, chose the event to make her first major public appearance outside her state since her unsuccessful 2008 vice-presidential campaign. Palin was, at the time, one of the nation’s hottest political properties.
The banquet also is Right to Life of Southwest Indiana’s primary fundraising event. A table for 10 cost $725 this year, and individual tickets could be purchased for $75 each.
Cathie Francis-Martin, the organization’s interim director, said the annual banquet draws as many people as it does because of the popularity of the cause in this region.
“Southwest Indiana is a very pro-life area,” Francis-Martin said. “We pull people from Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois — we pull from all over.”
Right to Life of Southwest Indiana believes it hosts the largest anti-abortion event in the nation, a determination that Francis-Martin said is backed by data from similar events around the country.
Also speaking at the Aug. 20 20 banquet is Francis-Martin’s daughter, Dr. Christina Francis, a Fort Wayne, Indiana-based OB/GYN hospitalist who works as CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Other Right to Life banquet keynote speakers have included:
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Ex-Trump press secretary to speak at Right to Life banquet in Evansville
Reporting by Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
