White House counselor Kellyanne Conway held a press conference on Tuesday about President Trump’s racist tweets directed at four Democratic female members of Congress. Things quickly escalated during an exchange with a reporter that led to Conway demanding the ethnicity of a reporter.
What We Know:
- Conway held the press conference in an attempt to explain Trump’s recent tweets. Andrew Feinberg, a reporter representing Beltway Breakfast, asked the counselor, “If the president was not telling these four congresswomen to return to their supposed countries of origin, to which countries was he referring?” Conway answered his question with the question, “what is your ethnicity?” Feinberg asked, “why is that relevant” in which Conway replied “Because I’m asking a question. My ancestors are from Ireland and Italy.”
- The exchange continued with Feinberg saying his ethnicity and the question he asked had no correlation. Conway fired back with “No, it is, because he said ‘originally from.’ And you know everything he has said since. And to have a full conversation.” Conway’s answer implied that a person’s country of origin is based on where their ancestors lived rather than where a person was born, which isn’t true according to National Geographic. “A lot of us are sick of this country coming last to people who swore an oath of office,” Conway continued.
- Feinberg told The Daily Beast, “It’s not the first time she’s responded to one of my questions with an irrelevant question, but this time was particularly bizarre.”
- Conway took to Twitter to comment on the exchange saying that she she’d meant “no disrespect” when asking about the reporter’s ethnicity. Trump also defended himself via Twitter, “Those Tweets were NOT Racist. I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!”
Earlier that day in a Fox interview, Conway was asked whether she agreed with her husband George Conway who wrote a column on the Washington Post titled, “Trump is a racist president.” “No, I totally disagree,” she said. “But, I work with this president, I know him. I know his heart. I know his actions. I know how much he has helped people of color. And I go by what people do, not what other people say about them.”
