This has got to make for awkward evenings at the Conway household.
George Conway, husband of White House staple Kellyanne Conway, has been going after Trump for years at this point. Redstate writer Elizabeth Vaughn covered some of his latest antics a few days ago. He’s consistently pushed the idea that Trump is mentally ill and needs to be removed from office. He bases this almost entirely on the President’s Twitter habits.
Conway recently posted this page from a book, clearly insinuating Trump suffers from a mental disorder.
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) March 18, 2019
As has been covered many times, you can not diagnose a mental disorder over Twitter. There are lots of people who tweet objectionable things and can’t let an insult roll off their back. By Conway’s logic, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is also mentally ill (actually, maybe he’s onto something).
Conway also posted this recently.
His condition is getting worse.
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) March 17, 2019
Is he really getting worse?
Objectively, Trump’s tweeting is no worse today than it was five years ago. He still insults people, he still uses nicknames, and he still can’t take an insult without firing back (as we’ll see). If anything, he’s mellowed out slightly and doesn’t do it as frequently. To assert that he’s getting worse is nonsensical. This is who Trump is. It’s not a mental disorder, it’s simply a product of having thin skin and an inability to not punch down. Conway’s constant tweeting about this reeks of just trying to get attention in the face of his wife eating up all the headlines.
Oddly enough, Conway actually lets the mask slip a little on that with this quote.
Conway also gave himself a little credit for her success.
“I made it possible for her to be where she is today,” he said. “So there’s that.”
Lucky for Conway, he’s got plot armor a foot thick or he’d be criticized by the media as being sexist for making such a comment. It’s also pretty disrespectful to his wife but hey, it’s their marriage.
Where does all this animosity come from? His vendetta seemed to start after he was passed over for a big DOJ position in 2017.
George Conway, the husband of senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, is set to be nominated to run the Justice Department’s civil division, according to people familiar with the matter, a job that would put him at the forefront defending the controversial immigration executive order and other lawsuits against the Trump administration.
In the end, that didn’t happen and he’s been frothing at the mouth over Trump on Twitter ever since. Just a coincidence? Unlikely, as he wouldn’t be the first (cough Michael Cohen cough) person to try to use Trump to their advantage and then get mad when they don’t get a job they want.
Kellyanne responded to her husband’s latest tweets by largely dismissing them.
Kellyanne said Monday morning she did not have the same concerns as her husband.
“I have four kids and I was getting them out of the house this morning to talk to the president about substance, so I may not be up to speed on all,” she said of her husband’s Monday tweets.
As if things couldn’t get any more tense, the President has now finally responded to George Conway’s sniping and it’s pretty much textbook Donald Trump.
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. I barely know him but just take a look, a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 20, 2019
Look, I get that the base likes this stuff, but this is probably not an area the President needs to be weighing in on. Responding to Conway? Sure, whatever, he deserves it. But bringing their marriage into it is just weird and is just as harmful to Kellyanne as it is her husband. I don’t know what’s going on in their relationship, but that’s something they’ve got to figure out. Trump driving wedges himself is not a good look.
The Washington Post described the exchange this way.
"Husband from hell!": Trump escalates feud with spouse of Kellyanne Conway https://t.co/Ar7cr9Wfgh
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 20, 2019
That’s a pretty dishonest way to spin things. Do I think Trump should have tweeted back the way he did? Not really, it’s just weird. But to pretend it’s Trump escalating this is simply not true. There has been no feud to this point because a feud requires two sides. Conway has been going at Trump for years with no response, with the most recent being the comments about mental illness cited earlier. I’m actually surprised it took Trump this long to slap back. I guess his fingers just couldn’t hold back the wrath any longer.
Where this goes from here is anyone’s guess. Does Kellyanne Conway stick around longer at the White House? Is she going to leave sooner rather than later? Who’s she even siding with at this point? There’s also the possibility that the Conways are just playing us all and this is a cleverly orchestrated game meant to raise their profiles.
I don’t know, but I know it’s incredibly awkward at this point, if not for them, for everyone else.
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