Conway: Obama and Clinton could ‘shut down’ lingering election questions

Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, vaguely suggested Friday that President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton could “shut down” remaining questions surrounding the election that Trump has tried to portray as an attempt to delegitimize him.

Speaking on Fox News Friday, Conway reiterated her dismissal of White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, who has been increasingly vocal in criticizing Trump for refusing to accept intelligence that Russia sought to disrupt the presidential election with cyberattacks.

While experts agree that the Russians hacked into Democrats’ emails during the campaign, it remains disputed whether they were actively trying to get Trump elected; Trump has denied both charges without offering alternative evidence. In caustic remarks at Thursday’s White House briefing, Earnest insisted that Trump knew the leaks were helping his campaign.

Asked on Fox if Earnest’s comments were coming from Obama, Conway declined to say, but acknowledged that the president did not stop his press secretary from making them. Without offering specifics, she then suggested that both Obama and Clinton could stop the criticism to pave the way for “this peaceful transition in our great democracy between the Obama administration and the Trump administration.”

“There is another person who has not, and her name is Hillary Clinton,” Conway said. “If you want to shut this down and you actually love the country enough to have this peaceful transition in our great democracy between the Obama administration and the Trump administration, there are a couple people in pretty prominent positions, one’s named Obama, one’s named Hillary Clinton, since it’s people want to fight for her election, they can shut this down.”

Conway did not explain how Clinton could affect Earnest’s actions, given that she has no formal role in the Obama White House, but she may have been generally referring to the continued resistance to Trump from Democrats.

Clinton has continued to blame FBI Director James Comey for her upset loss in the race, and some liberals devastated by the results have gone so far as to call for members of the Electoral College to reject Trump when they formally vote on Monday.

Despite Trump trying to push the questions about Russia aside, a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill continues to call for an investigation into the Kremlin’s attempt to meddle in the U.S. election.

(h/t Politico)

Media

Fox News video

Kellyanne Conway: ‘Why Do You Care’ About Trump’s Tweets?

Former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway on Monday defended President-elect Donald Trump’s Twitter vendetta against the Broadway musical “Hamilton,” arguing that social media use is “a great way” to “cut through the noise or silence” and that Trump has the right to offer his criticism.

“Why do you care?” Conway said when asked by “New Day” host Chris Cuomo about Trump’s “Hamilton” feud. “Who is to say that he can’t do that, make a comment, spend five minutes on a tweet and making a comment and still be president-elect?”

Conway, a senior adviser to Trump, criticized media coverage of the social media controversy, saying that Trump is “just trying to cut through the nonsense of people telling Americans what is important to them, which we saw through the elections wasn’t true. People constantly being told this issue, this statement, this past transgression is important to you — and Americans said, ‘No, it’s not. What’s important to me is this 100-day plan.'”

(h/t CNN)

Reality

But that is not what Donald Trump is doing.

Taking a look at his past 10 tweets, half of them are personal attacks against those who have criticized him. And we should care because Trump has made a habit of intimidating those who disagree with him, both in the press and private citizens.

trump-tweet-timeline-2016-11

Media

It’s All But Official: Donald Trump Won’t Release His Tax Returns

The writing has been on the wall for months now, but Sunday seemed to make it official: Donald Trump will become the first presidential nominee since Gerald Ford to not release his tax returns during the campaign.

Both Trump’s vice presidential nominee, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, and his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, essentially confirmed during their respective interviews that no disclosure would be forthcoming.

“I think as soon as the audit is completed [he will make them public],” Pence said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” When host Chuck Todd mentioned that the most recent returns weren’t under audit, Pence didn’t blink.

“He will release all his tax returns when the final audit is completed,” Pence said.

Conway stuck to a similar script when discussing the tax returns during an interview with ABC’s “This Week.”

“Not until our accountants and our lawyers say that we should,” she said, when asked if they would be released before the election. “We’re under audit. But he has disclosed a 104-page financial disclosure form that is publicly available. Anybody can pull it up and I say that they should.”

Trump has been under constant pressure to make his tax returns public, both because not doing so would be a sharp break from prior practice and because there are a number of questions surrounding his finances and charitable giving. The latest questions were raised in a Washington Post article Saturday, which reported that, despite routine public boasting about his generosity, there was almost no evidence that Trump has given to charity since 2009.

Trump and his campaign have cited a rolling audit of his finances as the reason why he can’t disclose his tax returns. Though lawyers advise against putting out returns during an audit, they have also stressed that there is no legal prohibition from doing so.

Explanations aside, the decision to not make his returns public makes Trump especially guarded in the modern political era. Every major-party presidential nominee since Nixon has put out this information, save Ford, who released a summary when he ran in 1976. Hillary Clinton and her husband have put out returns every year since 1977. Even Pence put out 10 years of tax returns this cycle.

Trump is different. And while his campaign has argued that Clinton is secretive in other areas (they’ve demanded that she turn over all of her emails from her time as secretary of state, for example), it’s also true that Trump has now set a precedent of nondisclosure that future candidates can (and will) follow.

(h/t Huffington Post)

Reality

Trump had a contradictory position 4 years ago when he demanded Mitt Romney to release his tax returns.

As for the “audit” excuse, the fact remains that this rationale has never made any sense: an IRS audit doesn’t preclude someone from sharing their returns.

Since Watergate, every presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican, has released his or her tax returns. It’s not required by law, but there’s a tradition of disclosure that Americans have come to count on during the presidential vetting process: candidates for the nation’s highest office are expected to release information related to their personal health and their tax filings.

Indeed even Richard Nixon, during his presidency, released his tax materials in the midst of an IRS audit. Trump could, if he wanted to, release these returns whenever he feels like it. For reasons he won’t explain, the GOP candidate just doesn’t want to.

If you remember the line once spoken by President Richard Nixon, “I am not a crook!” then you may not know it came in response to revelations that he had illicitly profited from his years in public service.

It’s as if the campaign has decided to wave a big, unmistakable sign that reads, “We have something to hide.”

Trump Campaign Manager: He Didn’t ‘Lie’ About Lester Holt, He Spoke Without Knowing the Truth

When confronted with the fact that Donald Trump falsely accused NBC host and Monday night’s debate moderator Lester Holt of being Democrat, his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway insisted on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that Trump didn’t lie, he just spoke without knowing the truth.

“He said Lester Holt was a Democrat. Lester Holt is a Republican. How could he say such a thing that just black-and white factually incorrect?” asked guest and Bloomberg Politics host Mark Halperin.

“I don’t know that he knew what Lester Holt’s voter registration is,” Conway said.

“Without knowing then, he asserted he was a Democrat?” Halperin asked.

“First of all, if you tell me the media are not overly populated with Democrats, that’s false,” Conway argued.

“I’m asking about a very specific thing,” Halperin said. “He made a factual claim about the moderator who deserves the right to be treated fairly and it was just wrong. And it’s a metaphor for his frequently in public stating things with no basis, that are wrong.”

Conway replied that they were happy with Holt as moderator, and went on a long defense of NBC’s Matt Lauer‘s handling of the presidential military forum. “This is a filibuster,” host Mika Bzrezinski said partway through.

“You’re not answering what I asked you,” Halperin said. “I’m asking you how someone running for president can assert on the eve of the debate that the moderator is a Democrat, which is factually incorrect? How can he do that?”

“Should he have asked him his voter registration?” retorted Conway, somewhat condescendingly.

“He shouldn’t have asserted– he didn’t say, ‘I don’t know what he is, but I think he’s biased,’ he said he’s a Democrat,” Halperin insisted.

Conway again pivoted, and attacked Hillary Clinton for her own working of the refs ahead of the debate and attacked the media coverage of the campaign. “I don’t understand what that has to do with Mark’s question,” Brzezinski said when she was finished.

“We are frustrated by media coverage,” Conway replied.

“We were asking why he lied about Lester Holt.”

“I don’t think he lied,” Conway said.

“Um, I think he did,” said Brzezinski.

“Mika, a lie would mean he knew the man’s party registration,” argued Conway.

“So as president, would he say things that are false without knowing the truth?” asked a disbelieving Halperin. Unfortunately, co-host Joe Scarborough cut in then to wrap up the discussion, and he never got an answer.

(h/t Mediaite)

Media

Trump Campaign Manager Calls For More Privacy From Trump But Less Transparency From Clinton

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway downplayed the need for “extensive medical reporting” on Donald Trump while accusing Hillary Clinton of a lack of transparency about her health conditions.

Speaking to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday, Conway said that she did not know what information Trump would disclose about his health when he appears on The Dr. Oz Show on Wednesday.

“I don’t know why we need such extensive medical reporting when we all have a right to privacy,” the campaign manager opined.

Mitchell pointed out that there was a tradition of candidates releasing medical records, which Trump had refused to honor.

“The American people have a right to know what the health is of their perspective commander-in-chief,” Mitchell insisted.
Report Advertisement

“I agree with your premise,” Conway replied. “And so the question remains, why in the world did Hillary Clinton lie to everyone and conceal such an important fact for two days [after being diagnosed with pneumonia], saying she was overheated and dehydrated and then, of course, hours and hours later after, unfortunately, her health had become the biggest trending story of the day, not the 9/11 fallen.”

“The question remains that if this is about transparency and medical records and health conditions then why was she so furtive in the business of concealment here?”

(h/t Raw Story)

Reality

In logic this is known as a double-standard. Unfairly applying a rule in different ways to different people.

Media

‘This is Badgering’: Trump Campaign Manager Comes Unglued Under Proof of Charity Claims

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway lashed out at CNN host Alisyn Camerota on Tuesday and accused the media of “badgering” Donald Trump because he would not provide evidence of his charitable donations.

During an interview with Conway on CNN’s New Day, Camerota noted that Trump had refused to release his tax returns because he was being audited, and asked the campaign manager if she would provide a letter from the IRS to prove he was under audit.

“I don’t know,” Conway shrugged. “Why? Are you calling him a liar?”

“And we’re taking Hillary Clinton’s word for she was ‘overheated’,” she added. “I mean, seriously, we’re running against a Clinton and we’re going to challenge someone’s veracity?”

Continuing to press for more transparency, Camerota asked if the campaign could prove vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s claim that Trump had donated “tens of millions” to charity.

“Donald Trump has been incredibly generous over the course of his life with his own money and his foundation’s money, which is his money,” Conway insisted.

“No,” Camerota replied. “The foundation’s money are other people who contributed to his foundation.”

“Okay,” Conway scoffed. “Are we going to actually question that Hillary Clinton and her husband made almost a quarter of a billion dollars and we’re supposed to just question — and that’s okay?”

After Camerota reminded Conway that Trump often touts his wealth, Conway pivoted to attacking Clinton for referring to some Trump voters as “deplorables.”

“I’m a capitalist, I just wish she would respect the hardworking men and women of this country who she thinks are a bunch of uneducated rubes coming down from the hills with no teeth and long fingernails, and just, you know, they need to be schooled by this precious woman in New York,” Conway said. “Do we even want a president of the United States who laughs at Americans?”

Camerota pressed on: “Part of why people are calling for him to release his taxes is so that we do know how he himself has given to charity. Will you or the campaign release exactly what that number is?”

“I doubted it,” Conway said dismissively. “This is like badgering. In other words, I don’t see it as journalism. I see it as badgering. In other words, we’ve had this conversation so many times on so many different networks, and yet, we’re not having conversations about what the middle class tax relief would actually mean for people’s wage stagnation.”

“How is it badgering to ask for the evidence of a claim?” Camerota wondered. “If Mike Pence is saying ‘tens of millions’ of dollars from Donald Trump, shouldn’t we see the evidence.”

“Did anybody ask Hillary Clinton for evidence she was overheated and dehydrated?” Conway shot back. “Is anyone asking her for evidence of why she thinks she so precious and special that she would have break protocol at Ground Zero on Sunday, Alisyn, and take her to her daughter’s apartment rather than a hospital?”

“I just don’t buy that,” Camerota remarked. “You also just can’t make claims and expect everyone to just accept it.”

“Donald Trump is a very generous man,” Conway said. “And to employ tens of thousands of people from different countries, both genders certainly, from all walks of life over the years.”

“That’s not charity,” Camerota observed. “Employment is not charity.”

(h/t Raw Story)

Reality

Kellyanne Conway expertly dodged, ducked, dipped, dove, and dodged every question that was thrown at her, never once coming close to a straightforward answer.

Many times her answers to questions, like on Trump’s lack of transparency, was to point out that their Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, was engaging in the same activity. So basically her response was to point to how low Clinton’s bar was on these issues, but then justify their stance by having their bar lowered to the exact same level. That doesn’t make a good argument as to why one should trust Trump over Clinton.

We covered Trump’s lack of charitable giving back in April 2016, so it is good to see this getting national attention it deserves. Trump brought this extra scrutiny on himself with illegal contributions from his foundation to bribe Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to not prosecute his Trump University scam.

Trump has also had other controversy surrounding his charitable giving, such as donations to veterans groups. Four months after claiming he gave money to veterans groups, reporters uncovered the fact that Trump never donated a dime. Once he was exposed he cut a check that evening then went on an all out attack on the media for uncovering his lie.

You can see the same play happening here with Conway, don’t answer questions, just attack the media for even bringing up these completely valid and relevant questions.

Media

 

Trump campaign says it is sad “Crooked” Hillary’s campaign resorted to name calling

Donald Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway laced into David Plouffe on Tuesday, days after the former campaign adviser to Barack Obama called the GOP nominee a “psychopath.”

Responding to that comment and Hillary Clinton’s speech tying Trump to white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan last week, Conway had three words on Fox News Radio’s “Kilmeade & Friends”: “Shame on them.”

“I mean, the name-calling has reached a fever pitch and it just tells ya, they got nothin’. They got no game,” Conway told host Brian Kilmeade, suggesting that if Clinton “were really strong on the issues” and if Plouffe “was that proud of his boss Barack Obama’s Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, then he would go out there and he’d talk about that.”

Rather than calling Trump a “psychopath,” a notion against which “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd pushed back Sunday, Conway remarked that Plouffe would have said that Clinton’s opponent “shouldn’t win, because Obamacare’s going so well, everybody’s so happy, United HealthCare and Aetna didn’t just realize billions of dollars in losses and pull out of 40-some exchanges.”

“They can’t. They don’t have the issue set that favors them” and thus they resort to name-calling, Conway said. “And I have to say, look, politics is not a tea party. It’s rough and tumble. We all get that, Brian. But to go out there and do guilt by association and to accuse people of having malice in their heart towards other people with no evidence, and then to do exactly what the American Psychological Association has asked people not to do, which is to, which is to certify somebody as mentally unfit or a psychopath. It’s just beyond the pale, and nobody calls them on it.”

Conway then thanked Kilmeade for calling out the issue, turning her ire to the media’s recent coverage of Trump after he repeatedly proclaimed that Clinton is a “bigot” for her treatment of African-American and Hispanic voters.

“All week long, it’s that Donald Trump referred to Hillary Clinton with one word and everybody, you know, their hair is on fire. Donald Trump is called every name in the book plus, before he gets out of bed in the morning. And yet that’s justifiable, that’s acceptable,” Conway remarked sarcastically. “Brian, look at these articles that are everywhere in the last week or two where mainstream media, so-called reporters, quote unquote, are outwardly saying that Donald Trump pushes their limits of objectivity, that they are challenging each other to cover him more aggressively because they believe he should not be president and commander in chief. Guess what, folks? That’s not their job. Their job is to report the news to you and not decide who should and who should not be president and then try to make that conclusion a reality.”

(h/t Politico)

Reality

If you can’t tell by the title of this article, Conway’s assertion is pretty bold coming from a campaign that was built on insulting and name-calling its way to the top. At Republican debates and during various campaign stops, Trump would roll out clever nicknames for his political rivals. Among them; “Lyin’ Ted” (Ted Cruz), “Little Marco” Marco Rubio), “Crooked Hillary” (Hillary Clinton), and “Goofy Elizabeth Warren.”

Here are a few other examples of Trump hurling insults:

JUNE 16, 2015 – Trump officially threw his clown hat into the circus that would soon be the 2016 race with a jaw-dropping, ad-libbed speech in which he insulted Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” derided foreign countries and lambasted President Obama and other American leaders as “losers.”

JULY 18, 2015 – In one of his cruelest, and strangest attacks, Trump, at a conservative summit in Iowa, ripped John McCain, a former prisoner of war. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said dismissively of McCain, who spent more than five years being tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and suffered permanent injuries as a result. “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

AUG. 6, 2015 – Tenacious moderator Megyn Kelly kicked off the event by reminding Trump that he’d called “women you don’t like, ‘fat pigs, ‘dogs, slobs and disgusting animal.’ Trump interjected, “Only Rosie O’Donnell,” setting off tensions between he, the conservative news network, and the entire GOP establishment that have yet to fully cool.

AUG. 7, 2015 – Trump, clearly affected by Kelly’s aggressive questioning of him during the initial GOP debate, was quick to go on the attack against the respected journalist. In an interview the night after the debate, Trump blasted Kelly for bringing up his years of piggish, anti-women remarks, as she questioned him during the Republican debate. He even suggested disgustingly that her ire was a product of menstrual cycle. “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her – wherever,” Trump said

NOV. 24, 2015 – Trump mocked reporter’s physical handicap. “Now the poor guy, you ought to see the guy,” Trump said, mimicking New York Times (and former Daily News) reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that limits the movement of the joints and weakens the muscles around them. “‘Uhh, I don’t know what I said. I don’t remember,'” Trump said, gyrating his arms as he mocked Kovaleski’s movements.

AUG 1, 2016 – Trump insults Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son, Army Captain Humayun Khan, died in the line of duty in 2004, after they criticized him during a speech at the Democratic National Convention. Trump bizarrely claimed his real estate empire was a “sacrifice” and questioned why Ghazala Khan stayed silent on stage while her husband spoke. “If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably – maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me,” Trump said, suggesting that the Khans’ Muslim faith barred the woman from speaking out.

New Trump Campaign Manager No Longer Wants Him to Release His Tax Returns

Donald Trump’s new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said that she does not want the Republican presidential nominee to release his tax returns until an audit by the Internal Revenue Service is completed, abandoning a position that she took five months ago, when she didn’t work for the campaign and urged Trump to “be transparent” and release the filings.

“I’ve learned since being on the inside that this audit is a serious matter and that he has said that when the audit is complete, he will release his tax returns,” Conway said during an interview on ABC’s “This Week” that aired Sunday morning. “I also know as a pollster that what concerns people most about quote ‘taxes’ is their own tax liability, and so we appreciate people being able to see Hillary Clinton’s plan and Donald Trump’s plan and figure out who will really get the middle-class tax relief.”

According to Trump’s attorneys, his tax returns filed since 2009 are under audit but those from 2002 to 2008 are no longer under audit. Conway said Sunday in an interview on CNN that she does not want Trump to release those returns, either.

On ABC, Conway also took a swipe at Clinton over transparency: “I’m glad that he’s transparent about a number of things, and we’re certainly running against the least accountable, least transparent, I think, joyless candidate in presidential political history.”

Trump is the first major presidential nominee from either party since 1976 to not release tax returns. Last summer, Clinton released returns from 2007 to 2014, and her campaign shared her 2015 return this month, as well as 10 years of returns from her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, has said that he plans to release his tax returns, with a spokesman telling CNN that this would happen before the election.

In April, Conway appeared on CNN and defended a short-lived alliance between Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) to stop Trump, a strategy that she considered “fair game.”

“Of course it’s fair game,” Conway said. “Oh, absolutely. It’s completely transparent. Donald Trump’s tax returns aren’t, and I would like to see those be transparent.”

During the Sunday interview on CNN, Conway said she didn’t understand why Trump’s tax returns have become such a big issue.

“This entire tax return debate is somewhat confounding to me, in the following sense: I don’t think that it creates one job, gets one more individual who does not have health insurance covered by health insurance, particularly under the disaster that has been Obamacare with these private insurers pulling out our exchanges now and reporting billions of dollars of losses,” Conway said. “If we want transparency, if we want specifics, the most relevant thing that people can look at is what is his plan for their tax bill.”

(h/t The Washington Post)

Reality

Trump had a contradictory position 4 years ago when he demanded Mitt Romney to release his tax returns.

As for the “audit” excuse, the fact remains that this rationale has never made any sense: an IRS audit doesn’t preclude someone from sharing their returns.

Since Watergate, every presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican, has released his or her tax returns. It’s not required by law, but there’s a tradition of disclosure that Americans have come to count on during the presidential vetting process: candidates for the nation’s highest office are expected to release information related to their personal health and their tax filings.

Indeed even Richard Nixon, during his presidency, released his tax materials in the midst of an IRS audit. Trump could, if he wanted to, release these returns whenever he feels like it. For reasons he won’t explain, the GOP candidate just doesn’t want to.

It’s as if the campaign has decided to wave a big, unmistakable sign that reads, “We have something to hide.”

Media

ABC This Morning – 8/21/2016

CNN – 8/21/2016

Trump Campaign Now Says Immigrant Deportation Force ‘To Be Determined’

Donald Trump’s new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, on Sunday said that the creation of a “deportation force” for undocumented immigrants under a Trump administration was “to be determined.”

Throughout the Republican primary, Trump supported the forcible removal of the some 11 million undocumented immigrants estimated to live in the United States.

Last November, he called for a deportation force to do the job. In an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” he said, “You’re going to have a deportation force, and you’re going to do it humanely.”

Trump has made the vilification of immigrants a central part of his campaign: from his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border (and claims that Mexico will “pay for it”) to his call to ban people who are Muslim from traveling to the United States. He made headlines in June for saying that an American-born judge presiding over a Trump University lawsuit could not be impartial because of the judge’s Hispanic ancestry.

But in August, his campaign convened a meeting of a new Hispanic advisory board. Speaking to NBC Latino of an “open-minded” Trump, Hispanic supporters who attended the meeting suggested the GOP candidate would unveil a new immigration plan that offered solutions beyond deportation.

In light of the meeting and apparent policy reversal, CNN’s Dana Bash pressed Conway, who was named Trump’s campaign manager just days ago, Sunday on whether Trump still supported launching the deportation force he called for during the primary.

Conway evaded the question twice, then responded, “To be determined.”

(h/t NBC News)

Reality

While Conway’s answer does not completely discount a deportation force, it does put it in to question, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

With the many other flip-flops since becoming the Republican party’s nominee, he’s rejected virtually every stance that his supporters loved which separated him from the other candidates during the primaries. How could Trump be taken at his word for anything anymore?

As we explained in our policy review of Trump’s immigration reform, mass deportations would involve rounding up every undocumented person and forcibly removing them from the country. What Trump is advocating here, the forced removal of a portion of a population with the same national heritage from an area, already has a name, it’s called “ethnic cleansing” and it is not seen as a positive and moral thing. On top of the horrific crimes against humanity being proposed, what Trump also fails to mention here is the cost. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told lawmakers that it costs about $12,500 to deport one immigrant from the United States. Multiply that by 11.3 million, and you get $141.3 billion.

Along with tripping the number of ICE agents and a nationwide E-Verify system, Trumps plan would be a giant middle finger to individual freedom and morality while costing the taxpayers over $160 billion.

Media

 

New Trump Campaign Manager Says He ‘Doesn’t Hurl Personal Insults’, Then He Proved Her Wrong

Donald Trump’s new campaign manager says the Republican presidential nominee doesn’t hurl personal insults.

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Kellyanne Conway was asked about past statements she made criticizing Trump’s tone and attacks on his rivals.

“I don’t like when people hurl personal insults, that will never change,” Conway said. “I’m the mother of four small children. That would be a terrible example for me to feel otherwise.”But when pressed by host George Stephanopoulos on whether Trump would change his approach, Conway defended his tone.

“He doesn’t hurl personal insults,” she said.

“He just this week — look what he talked about. He’s bringing the case right to communities of color in Michigan, and he’s speaking to all Americans when he does that. What he’s doing is he’s challenging the Democratic Party. He’s challenging President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s legacy.”

Conway took over as Trump’s new campaign manager last week. She had chastised Trump in February, though, for “hurling personal insults” and using “vulgar” language.

“Do I want somebody who hurls personal insults or who goes and talks about philosophical differences?” Conway asked on CNN at the time.

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

Within a few hours after making this statement, Donald Trump sent tweets personally insulting MSNBC hosts Donny Deutsch and then attacked and threatened fellow MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

Here are a few other examples of Trump hurling insults:

JUNE 16, 2015 – Trump officially threw his clown hat into the circus that would soon be the 2016 race with a jaw-dropping, ad-libbed speech in which he insulted Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” derided foreign countries and lambasted President Obama and other American leaders as “losers.”

JULY 18, 2015 – In one of his cruelest, and strangest attacks, Trump, at a conservative summit in Iowa, ripped John McCain, a former prisoner of war. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said dismissively of McCain, who spent more than five years being tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and suffered permanent injuries as a result. “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

AUG. 6, 2015 – Tenacious moderator Megyn Kelly kicked off the event by reminding Trump that he’d called “women you don’t like, ‘fat pigs, ‘dogs, slobs and disgusting animal.’ Trump interjected, “Only Rosie O’Donnell,” setting off tensions between he, the conservative news network, and the entire GOP establishment that have yet to fully cool.

AUG. 7, 2015 – Trump, clearly affected by Kelly’s aggressive questioning of him during the initial GOP debate, was quick to go on the attack against the respected journalist. In an interview the night after the debate, Trump blasted Kelly for bringing up his years of piggish, anti-women remarks, as she questioned him during the Republican debate. He even suggested disgustingly that her ire was a product of menstrual cycle. “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her – wherever,” Trump said

NOV. 24, 2015 – Trump mocked reporter’s physical handicap. “Now the poor guy, you ought to see the guy,” Trump said, mimicking New York Times (and former Daily News) reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that limits the movement of the joints and weakens the muscles around them. “‘Uhh, I don’t know what I said. I don’t remember,'” Trump said, gyrating his arms as he mocked Kovaleski’s movements.

2015 – 2016 – At Republican debates and during various campaign stops, Trump began rolling out clever nicknames for his political rivals. And like his candidacy, they all stuck. Among them? “Lyin’ Ted” (Ted Cruz), “Little Marco” Marco Rubio), “Crooked Hillary” (Hillary Clinton) and “Goofy Elizabeth Warren.”

AUG 1, 2016 – Trump insults Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son, Army Captain Humayun Khan, died in the line of duty in 2004, after they criticized him during a speech at the Democratic National Convention. Trump bizarrely claimed his real estate empire was a “sacrifice” and questioned why Ghazala Khan stayed silent on stage while her husband spoke. “If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably – maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me,” Trump said, suggesting that the Khans’ Muslim faith barred the woman from speaking out.

Media

1 2 3 4