Kellyanne Conway spoke at length Thursday about her husband's ugly public feud with the president after Trump called him a 'whack job'.
His wife gave a pained interview just her husband renewed his assault on Trump in which she said it's 'unlike' him to tweet at all and it's a 'new' development that he's no longer 'supporting the agenda of the president and my work there.'
She scolded her husband on television in her second day of involving herself in the row between George Conway and Trump, and said the president had a right to defend himself because her husband had criticized him first.
'I appreciate the president defending what he thinks is unfairness,' she https://twitter.com/MorningsMaria/status/1108725955416199168 on her Fox Business show, Mornings with Maria. 'I'll leave that up to him.'
She added in a message intended for her husband: 'I was raised, though, in a household of strong Italian Catholic women who taught me that you air grievances like that in private, so it is very surprising to see it be so public.' https://twitter.com/MorningsMaria/status/1108725955416199168
She said she had 'certainly' had conversations with her husband about keeping his views to himself but said that she was focused on her work with Trump.
'I've talked about it in passing,' she said when asked what discussions she and the president had had.
But she said: 'I am not being asked to choose between my marriage and my job.'
Kellyanne Conway is speaking out publicly about her husband's dispute with the president following her boss' claim that she's married to a 'whack job' who's damaging this wife's reputation
George Conway suggested Thursday that Donald Trump is in 'cognitive decline,' in spite of a public warning from his wife - a senior adviser to the president - that he's not qualified to dish out medical advice.
Trump had raised the temperature Wednesday in his feud with Conway, calling him 'a husband from hell' in a tweet and telling reporters that he's 'a whack job.' The back-and-forth prompted the lawyer's wife, Kellyanne Conway, to publicly side with her boss in the month's long spat.
The next morning, George Conway was back on the attack, promoting a decades-old Tom Brokaw interview with a 33-year-old Trump as evidence for his argument that Trump is nuts. He also claimed the president is a 'compulsive liar,' and that's why Trump's lawyers didn't want him talking to Robert Mueller.
After calling Trump 'dumb' in one assessment, Conway said, in response to a follower's claim that Trump could be in 'cognitive decline,' that it's 'possible' the 72-year-old president is losing his mental faculties.
'Also possible. There's a clip of Trump online talking to Tom Brokaw thirty years ago and Trump is speaking in complete, coherent sentences. It's quite a remarkable contrast to today, when all you get are these often incompréhensible word salads,' he said.
George Conway suggested Thursday that Donald Trump is in 'cognitive decline,' in spite of a public warning from his wife - a senior adviser to the president - that he's not qualified to offer such a diagnosis
Trump had raised the temperature Wednesday in his feud with Conway, calling him 'a husband from hell' in a tweet and telling reporters that he's 'a whack job'
The next morning, George Conway was back on the attack, promoting a decades-old Tom Brokaw interview with a 33-year-old Trump as evidence for his argument that Trump is nuts
He also claimed that Trump is a compulsive liar who would put himself in legal jeopardy if he had to sit for questioning
Attorney George Conway, husband of White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway, speaks at Georgetown Law School on March 8
The former campaign manager for Trump who followed him to the White House has avoided comment on her marriage and her husband's derogatory remarks about her boss. She addressed the clash at length for the first time on Wednesday, in a Politico interview.
She noted Thursday, on Bartiromo's program, 'I don't talk much about this publicly.'
Conway said her first priority is the 'protection' of the four children she has with George.
She said her husband encouraged her to work for the president and was 'enthusiastic' about the family's move from New York to Washington at the beginning of the Trump administration.
'We have four school-aged children. So you don't just -- I -- I'm their mother. I could never have just come here and been here for two and a half years without them. So we made a decision as a family to move here,' she said. 'George decided he would like to do something different with his career. I totally supported that. He wanted the solicitor general's job. That didn't work out. Then he was nominated or offered the job at the Justice Department.'
Conway argued that her husband's tweets are meaningless, as he does not have the power to act on his assessments in the way Mueller, the deputy attorney general or a talk show host does.
'I don't know when the feminists are going to write this story about the unusual situation of a man getting power through his wife,' she predicted. 'But that's what we have here.'
Her husband produced a letter this week affirming his claims that he turned the DOJ job down. He also shared screen-grabs from a psychiatric diagnostic manual to back up his claims that Trump is mentally ill.
The president decided Wednesday that enough is enough. He skewered George Conway on Twitter and slammed him to reporters as he took questions ahead of a departure from the White House.
'George Conway, often referred to as Mr. Kellyanne Conway by those who know him, is VERY jealous of his wife's success & angry that I, with her help, didn't give him the job he so desperately wanted,' Trump wrote on Twitter. 'I barely know him but just take a look, a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!'
As he left the White House for Ohio hours later, he couldn't resist putting his broadside on videotape.
'I don't know him. He's a whack job, there's no question about it,' the presdient said.
'I think he's doing a tremendous disservice to his wonderful wife. Kellyanne is a wonderful woman, and I call him 'Mr. Kellyanne',' he added.
President Trump branded George Conway, his chief counselor Kellyanne Conway's spouse, a 'husband from hell' after the two crossed swords online, and then told reporters that he's 'a whack job'
Mr. Conway tweeted a series of pages from a psychiatric diagnosis manual, suggesting the president is mentally ill
Mrs. Conway broke a glass ceiling in 2016 as the first woman to lead a successful presidential campaign; Trump claimed Wednesday that she played a role in keeping her husband from getting a top Justice Department job
Trump wrote that Mr. Conway is angry that he didn't get a plus administration position, and mocked him as 'Mr. Kellyanne Conway'
She said Trump had sat on the sidelines of her household's intramural political mudfight long enough.
'He left it alone for months out of respect for me,' she said. 'But you think he shouldn't respond when somebody, a non-medical professional, accuses him of having a mental disorder? You think he should just take that sitting down?'
