Conway Stunningly Claims Trump Tweeting Is ‘The Democratization of Information’
Kellyanne Conway took to Fox News Friday morning to defend President Donald Trump, but her defense didn’t actually help. The Counselor to the President admitted that Trump’s horrific Thursday morning attack on MSNBC co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, especially on Brzezinski, was designed to “change the conversation” of “one-way toxicity,” presumably to two-way, given his remarks.
“I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore),” Trump had said on Twitter. “Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came … to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”
“it’s incredible to watch people play armchair psychologist, outwardly ridiculing the president’s physicalities, his mental state, calling names that you wouldn’t want your children to call on the playground,” Conway told the co-hosts at Fox & Friends, “and then all of a sudden feigning shock when he wants to fight back and defend himself,” she said.
“And hopefully, change the conversation, because the conversation right now is a one-way conversation of toxicity. A lot of these people on television right now do not criticize his policies, they do not criticize his actions and his beliefs, they criticize him,” she said, falsely.
The only TV pundits who are not regularly criticizing Trump’s policies, actions, or beliefs are Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity.
Conway was also asked if the White House holds meetings before Trump tweets to determine a strategy. She responded by saying he “controls his social media platform,” which reaches “100 million people as I understand it.” She curiously added, “he tells me, as if insulating herself from charges of lying. Trump does not have 100 million followers, although he may have a “reach” of 100 million, which is a technical term whose meaning is determined by social media companies.
She also said Trump’s tweeting “is his way of cutting out the middle man,” presumably the media. “The middle man doesn’t like it,” she claimed. (Actually, journalists have said they love when Trump tweets as it’s raw material for news-making.)
“I call it the democratization of information,” Conway said. She falsely claimed he uses social media “often” to “tell the veterans they are seen as one patient across the DOD and the VA.” That’s demonstrably false.
ThinkProgress’ Zack Ford writes, “In other words, it doesn’t matter what he says because it’s so great that he has a venue in which to say it.” Trump has made clear facts don’t matter – but his attacks also make clear either does policy, agenda, or messaging.
“He’s telling Americans that after seven and a half years of ObamaCare, lying to people about keeping their plans,” she said, rattling off claims of insurers pulling out, Conway said Trump “uses that social media platform to do that.”
Conway went on to defend Trump by saying, “As a woman who knows him and works for him, I’m very pleased at how he treats women in this workplace, the White House.â€Â
She noted she is a mother of four children.
“His two daughters and his wife are three of the strongest, most intelligent, most courageous women I’ve ever met, and they’re all willing to be public servants at this point,” Conway said, adding he has been “elevating women” in his business and in the White House, including in the cabinet. Trump has just two women in his cabinet. At this point in his administration President Barack Obama had four women in his cabinet, with a total of eight during his tenure.
Conway also said “millions of women rejected a woman for President.” But millions more women voted for Clinton than for Trump, 54% to 42%.
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