“If the president were simply mediocre or even bad, I’d have nothing to say. This is much different.” – George Conway pic.twitter.com/t7BQGtZ9kF
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) August 15, 2018
She works for Trump and he can’t stand him. At home with George and Kellyanne Conway.https://t.co/0ID2qyiadE
— Ben Terris (@bterris) August 15, 2018
First time I saw George Conway, he was literally holding his wife’s coat at a post-Trump-election gala, looking like a man who could not believe his own luck. Apparently his feelings about the Oval Office Occupant in Chief… aren’t so warm, any longer. Ben Terris, the Washington Post Style reporter who first alerted us to then-Rep. Aaron Schock’s taste in office decor, introduces us to one of DC’s power couples:
… “He’s not just my boss,” Kellyanne, 51, says. “He’s our president.”
“Yeah,” George says, walking out of the room. “We’ll see how long that lasts.”
Here at the Conways’, it’s a house divided. She is Trump’s loyal adviser, the woman who carried him over the finish line to the White House. He is one of the president’s most notable conservative critics and wishes he had never introduced his wife to Trump in the first place.
Kellyanne invited me here because she thought it would be a good symbol for her commitment to, and the enduring strength of, the Trump presidency. The White House may be shedding staff at record speed, but this new home is a sign that Kellyanne isn’t going anywhere; that she is, in fact, flourishing.
And that may be true. But as I spent time with Kellyanne and George, I saw an alternative symbol: The Conways, like the rest of the country, have been jolted by the Trump presidency. They love each other, are exasperated by each other, talk about each other behind each other’s backs. They share a roof and live in different bunkers…
And their feud, thanks to George’s newfound Twitter hobby, is playing out for more than just the neighbors to see.
When the president was in search of a new communications director last year, George tweeted it was “absurd” that the president so often says one thing and then does the opposite. In addition to various tweets about corgis and the Philadelphia Eagles, he has retweeted dozens of articles critical of the president and his administration, and he penned a 3,473-word essay rebutting Trump’s assertion that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation was “unconstitutional.”…
“If you make this story all about him, I’ll definitely push back on that after it’s printed,” Kellyanne says, talking about George. “There’s no story about me, except the overcoming of circumstance and the fact that I’m so independent.”
But it’s a story about both of them. Of course it is. The more time I spend with them, the more I know that. It’s the story of people who love Trump, and the people who are trying to love them.
Late Night Open Thread: Trump Is <em>Also</em> Bad for Domestic RelationshipsPost + Comments (124)