Top Trump Advisor Tells 17 Year Old She’s ‘Mean’ and Using ‘Sexual Assault to Try to Make News’

‘For You to Use Sexual Assault to Try to Make News Here I Think Is Unfortunate’

Kellyanne Conway on Wedneday told a 17-year old high school student she is “mean” and using “sexual assault to try to make news.” Conway, now a senior adviser to the Trump transition team, was the first woman campaign manager to deliver the White House to a presidential candidate.

Speaking with a group of students at an event hosted by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics in Washington, D.C., Conway was asked how she was able to support Donald Trump, a man who apparently admitted to acts of sexual assault against women, and who has been accused of sexual assault by about a dozen women.

“Donald Trump has negated claims that he sexually assaulted women but also admitted to a tape where he seemed to be describing sexual assault,” the 17-year old young woman asked Conway at the event, the 18th Annual American Democracy Conference. (Video above, starting at the 1:52:00 mark.)

“How do you rationalize that as a woman and also as his campaign manager?” the 17-year old asked, as Politico reported.

She received applause from the audience for her question, which Conway attributed not to a disdain for sexual assault but partisanship. Conway followed that remark with, “How’s the Millennial outreach program going, Hillary?” A few “boos” could be heard in the background.

The young woman was referring to the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape that exposed then-Republican nominee Donald Trump making his now infamous “grab them by the p*ssy” comments, among others, which legal experts have characterized as describing acts of sexual assault. She also happens to be the daughter of Mother Jones’ Washington Bureau Chief, David Corn, according to AP reporter Steve Peoples.

It’s not known if Conway was aware of the relationship, nor if she would have cared.

“What you just said was said probably tens of thousands of times during the campaign, on the internet, on TV incessantly, in paid advertising,” Conway said, as Politico reported. “All this anti-woman stuff. And you know how America’s women answered? They gave the would-be first female candidate, I don’t know, what was it, 56 percent of the vote, 57?”

“To be the first female president and not have women marching on Pennsylvania Avenue or Fifth Avenue in New York by the Trump Tower saying, ‘We must have the first female president, we must have the first female president,’” Conway added.

The former campaign manager and owner of a polling company then accused the 17-year old of being “personally mean” by bringing up Trump’s alleged sexual assault, and was using it to “make news.”

Clinton, Conway insisted, “should have gotten 60 or 62 percent of the female vote. And she did not. And part of why she did not is women tired of the same argument and the same thing that you’re presenting to me now, even though you’re trying to be personally mean about it.”

“For you to use sexual assault to try to make news here I think is unfortunate, but it also doesn’t matter because Donald Trump promised he’ll be a president of all Americans.”

The Hill adds that Conway also slapped down the young woman’s question by saying, “I’m glad that people looked at [those attacks] and said, ‘You know what? That’s an argument that will not create a single job in my community, not bring back a single of the 70,000 factories that have been closed, will not deter one member of ISIS from doing their bloodletting here or anywhere else in the world.”