Top White House aide Kellyanne Conway defended President Donald Trump’s recent attacks against her husband, George Conway, saying the president couldn’t be expected to remain silent as her husband publicly questioned his mental fitness for office.
“[Trump] left it alone for months out of respect for me,” Conway told Politico on Wednesday. “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?”
George Conway, an attorney who has been married to Kellyanne since 2001, has made a daily habit of mocking the president on Twitter. He regularly uses the social media platform to challenge the legality of Trump administration policies and discuss the possibility of impeaching Trump.
In recent weeks, he has accused Trump of having narcissistic personality disorder, a mental condition characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance and a lack of empathy.
“Once someone understands narcissistic personality disorder, they understand you and why you’re unfit and incompetent for the esteemed office you temporarily hold,” he tweeted at Trump on Tuesday.
The attorney’s criticism of Trump first generated headlines last spring, though the president didn’t publicly address it until late last year.
In November, George Conway wrote an op-ed in The New York Times bashing Trump’s interim attorney general pick to replace the ousted Jeff Sessions. He called Matt Whitaker’s nomination “unconstitutional,” given his previous comments criticizing special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
“He’s just trying to get publicity for himself,” Trump said when asked about Conway’s op-ed. “I really don’t know the guy.”
Trump continued to attack his senior aide’s husband on Twitter this week, retweeting his 2020 campaign manager’s criticism of George Conway on Tuesday and then tweeting his own jab Wednesday morning.
“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,” the president tweeted. “I barely know him but just take a look, a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!”
Trump later told reporters at the White House that George Conway is “a total whack job” who is doing a “disservice to a wonderful wife.”
CNN, a news outlet Trump has repeatedly slandered as “fake news,” profiled Kellyanne Conway on its recent episode of “Badass Women Of Washington.” She told the network that her gender has “helped” her relationship with Trump, and also discussed her relationship with her husband.
“George was so excited, literally crying with joy in his MAGA hat ― black, not red ― with his MAGA hat on election night,” she told CNN. “So, in that way, he’s changed his opinion on matters with the President, the presidency. I haven’t and Donald Trump hasn’t.”
She said she found the nickname “Mr. Kellyanne Conway” to be “clever” and noted that it’s “unusual” for a husband to “get his notoriety and power through his wife.”
“It’s usually the other way around,” she said. “People are always saying, ‘George and you should write a book, George and you should come to Harvard and speak,’ you know, side by side, and we should do all that. And I think, ‘Oh, OK,’ but then I’d have to give him my power.”
Watch Kellyanne Conway’s CNN profile below.