The Megyn Kelly Show - Outrageous Media Behavior, and Balancing White House Work and Family, with Kellyanne Conway

00:00:00.420 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.260 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:14.720 As the nation continues to mourn the young lives lost in Uvalde, Texas,

00:00:19.800 we are learning more about the shooter's chilling final messages, missed warning signs, and police response.

00:00:25.620 The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, saying that investigators found social media messages the gunman sent to a teenager in Germany he had met online.

00:00:35.040 He was apparently upset with his grandmother over an issue with his phone bill.

00:00:39.240 So he wrote to the girl, I just shot my grandma in the head.

00:00:43.680 He then messaged her again, writing, I'm a go shoot up an elementary school.

00:00:49.360 The timeline of events is still very unclear, but according to multiple news outlets,

00:00:53.680 the shooter was inside the school for roughly an hour.

00:00:57.620 And there are questions about whether that was too long and the frustration of parents on the outside.

00:01:04.660 My guest today is somebody with a vast wealth of experience in politics and indeed in the White House.

00:01:11.780 She was part of a White House administration when tragedies like this happened,

00:01:16.040 including what happened down at Parkland in Florida.

00:01:18.520 She's also the author of a brand new book called Here's the Deal, Kellyanne Conway.

00:01:28.240 Welcome to the show.

00:01:29.260 So good to have you here.

00:01:30.780 Megan, it's a real pleasure.

00:01:32.000 Thanks for having me.

00:01:32.880 And you're just so right about how we all mourn and grieve with the people of Uvalde, Texas.

00:01:39.460 It's senseless.

00:01:40.120 It's moral depravity.

00:01:41.080 It's evil.

00:01:41.580 It's every parent and frankly, every non-parent's worst fear.

00:01:46.460 It should not be an occupational hazard for children when they go to school.

00:01:50.460 And you're right about Parkland, Florida.

00:01:52.320 That was a very tough moment.

00:01:53.900 We invited the Parkland families to the White House.

00:01:55.960 We were with them in the state dining room for an extended conversation.

00:01:59.420 I also flew with President Trump to Texas after there was a school shooting there.

00:02:03.460 And we met with parents there, you know, and there's hardly anything you can say that will

00:02:10.520 ever make them whole again.

00:02:12.160 In fact, there's nothing you can say, but it's very important that people understand that

00:02:15.960 folks in leadership, like a president of the United States, are listening and are with

00:02:20.780 them all of the way, not just when it's in the news, not just when it's fresh, but many

00:02:25.560 days after that.

00:02:27.040 Yeah.

00:02:27.400 You know, it's that role of comforter in chief.

00:02:30.220 It's not always easy.

00:02:31.360 I mean, the president's just a human being and may have his own personal reactions to

00:02:35.780 the horror that we see unfolding, which is one of the unfortunate things about the fact

00:02:40.980 that Joe Biden got political the other night.

00:02:43.960 You know, he was he's very anti, you know, gun, and he used this as an opportunity to push

00:02:49.120 that agenda.

00:02:49.800 My own personal view of it, Kellyanne, was there's a time for that.

00:02:53.360 His first remarks to the nation was not that time.

00:02:56.320 It would have been nice if he had just had one unifying message about mourning the value

00:03:00.760 of life, you know, the love one has for one's children.

00:03:04.640 And he started off on that note and then it turned and, you know, that's where it remains.

00:03:09.320 What are your thoughts on it?

00:03:11.360 You're 100 percent right.

00:03:12.700 I was very disappointed.

00:03:13.980 I watched the president live and I happened to be on live television, Megan, when the news

00:03:19.040 I heard you.

00:03:19.940 I heard you were on the five.

00:03:22.140 Yes, I was.

00:03:22.980 I was on the five on Fox News Channel.

00:03:25.000 We transitioned, of course, the entire show went to that.

00:03:28.460 And and I was trying to ask questions of the FBI agent, of the reporter who was on the

00:03:34.420 scene, et cetera.

00:03:35.000 And I really warned people then not to speculate and not to walk on these fallen angels bodies

00:03:42.220 for their own political gain.

00:03:44.000 Of course, people don't listen to that.

00:03:45.380 They don't know anything else.

00:03:46.400 And I thought in the case of President Biden, as somebody who, God forbid, Megan, has experienced

00:03:52.740 the loss of two of his children, that he could empathize with these these parents, these

00:03:59.660 families, that that community much more than maybe the average person.

00:04:04.360 But it quickly turned political.

00:04:06.180 It quickly turned about something that that was so inappropriate, given the fact that we

00:04:11.640 weren't even sure at that moment.

00:04:13.360 And he would know the best as the president.

00:04:15.620 We weren't even sure at that moment that families had been totally reunited with their

00:04:19.680 missing children.

00:04:20.820 And of course, then the parents are going to be asked to identify their their fallen children.

00:04:24.320 So so much of it is fraught.

00:04:26.420 And I think it's one of those many instances, Megan, where less is more.

00:04:31.060 Yeah.

00:04:31.440 And it is it is incredibly disappointing.

00:04:34.180 And when you when you compare that also to what Beto O'Rourke did the very next day,

00:04:38.440 I mean, that is unspeakable in a different way, because I think Beto O'Rourke is the

00:04:42.000 worst example of how this got politicized.

00:04:44.460 Here is someone, Megan, who was in Congress, then ran for Senate and lost, then ran for

00:04:49.500 president of the United States and lost, got as many electoral votes as Kamala Harris and

00:04:52.740 Cory Booker, which is to say zero.

00:04:54.900 Right.

00:04:55.400 And now is running for governor of Texas and will lose and just shows up there.

00:05:01.140 Doesn't say, hey, I've got kids 15, 13 and 11, which he does.

00:05:05.080 Hey, I've been away from them running for political office unsuccessfully for years while my wife's

00:05:09.100 been raising them. That's an aside. But guess what?

00:05:12.180 He doesn't say any of that. He just started screaming at them because he knew the cameras

00:05:15.240 were on. He knew it was a life.

00:05:16.460 That's exactly it.

00:05:17.620 Wait, let me show it to the audience, Kellyanne. Hold that thought because I want you to continue.

00:05:21.340 But I just want to clue people in on what we're talking about in case they haven't seen it.

00:05:24.100 He showed up yesterday at a press conference with Governor Abbott and the mayor of Uvalde and

00:05:28.840 other local officials trying to brief the community on the latest.

00:05:32.720 And he made it about himself.

00:05:34.460 He was off mic, but you can hear him yelling and then you can hear the mayor of Uvalde giving

00:05:39.060 it right back to him. Take a listen.

00:05:40.500 You're out of line. Sir, you're out of line. Sir, you're out of line. Please leave this auditorium.

00:06:07.820 Sir, you're next. I can't believe you're a sick son of a bitch that would come to a deal

00:06:14.480 like this to make a political issue.

00:06:21.480 It's on assholes like you. Why don't you get out of here?

00:06:29.480 He's walking away. He stops. He yells again.

00:06:41.300 And I was walking away.

00:06:44.480 And that's it. The exits.

00:06:51.820 So, Kellyanne, the comments, this is on you. This was totally predictable.

00:06:56.220 It was. Does he know something we don't know?

00:06:59.440 Well, if he did, he should have come forward. And that's always the mystery of some of these

00:07:03.780 more radical Democrats who are there for political purposes. And Megan, for all we know, it's probably

00:07:09.980 the probability that there were family members of the fallen angels who were watching that press

00:07:15.100 conference trying to get information. Yes.

00:07:17.160 And there he is making it even worse. And one other thing, if I see that footage or his face

00:07:24.760 in a political ad or a fundraising piece, I'm going to come back on the show and we're going to talk

00:07:29.980 about it, if I may, because that would be the biggest disgrace of a disgrace. And as I want to

00:07:34.580 say, let's just review who he is very quickly. When he ran for president, he was on the cover of Vanity

00:07:38.940 Fair saying, I was born to do this. Well, it turns out he really was. He's born to fail

00:07:44.140 as a political recidivist candidate every chance he gets. But that addition of Vanity Fair,

00:07:51.000 which should have been called Vanity Project for him, was basically still in the newsstands when

00:07:54.340 he dropped out of the race in 2019. This is somebody who made us watch him fry a burger,

00:07:59.880 get a root canal, be on his skateboard. He's a narcissist in the worst possible way. And guess

00:08:06.680 what? If he wants to be a narcissist, if he wants to be a career politician, have at it. This is

00:08:10.400 America, pal. But you don't do that at a time when people are literally grieving, their lives will

00:08:16.880 never be the same. And again, watch your TV screen. If that's in an ad, if those pictures appear in a

00:08:23.200 fundraising appeal, that is the that is the worst of the worst. That would be 100% disqualifying as

00:08:29.460 this by itself might be to interrupt the flow of information to grieving family and community members

00:08:35.180 to make it about yourself, yourself. I mean, it's rare when a politician can shock you with his

00:08:41.120 hubris, but it happened. You know, it happened. So that's him. I mean, it's like yet another day

00:08:47.780 for him because that's not the first time and it probably won't be the last. But the people of Texas

00:08:51.460 will hopefully remember how he behaved there. I do want to ask you just one word about there's sort

00:08:57.780 of a blame game unfolding now in Texas, separate and apart from did we know much about the shooter and

00:09:02.920 all that? It's there's there are reports now that the the police may have been outside of that school

00:09:08.440 for over an hour not going in. There are conflicting reports about it. First, they said they ran in,

00:09:14.680 they ran in after the shooter and some got shot and then they took time to set up a perimeter. And then

00:09:18.680 finally, law enforcement came up, Border Patrol agent, heroic guy ran in there and shot him.

00:09:23.940 Now you're having parents who are outside directly accused the cops of not going in,

00:09:30.400 that they were talking amongst themselves about storming the school because they heard gunshots

00:09:35.600 and the cops weren't going in. You never know in a situation like this, Kellyanne, you know what

00:09:40.760 happened. And that's the one thing that the public information officer wouldn't disclose yesterday.

00:09:45.260 He was asked about the timeline. He's very open about the events as they unfolded, but not the

00:09:50.140 timeline. And it makes me feel a little uncomfortable just talking about it because you hate to condemn law

00:09:55.480 enforcement in a situation like this. But, you know, when there are children inside, there's going

00:10:00.000 to be fallout from this if if they did delay. Well, this happened in Parkland, of course. We saw this

00:10:07.380 on videotape and I don't know what happened there. I'm not an eyewitness. I'm not. I can't talk about

00:10:13.080 the facts in real time, but I am listening to those parents and others who were outside of the

00:10:18.060 building, Megan, and what they are reporting were the facts at the time. I think the reason the public

00:10:23.120 information officer is not coming forth is because let's remind ourselves, this is an active

00:10:27.380 investigation. This is a crime scene. And and they can't really I think what I appreciate about what

00:10:35.560 the school district has done so far, that woman who's very she's very good at her job. I don't know

00:10:40.880 her name. I apologize to her. She comes up and says, we're making a statement. We're not taking

00:10:45.040 questions. I think that was the right way to handle it in those first hours or days. Because if you start

00:10:50.460 taking questions you don't know the answer to, you can make the situation worse. We need facts here.

00:10:55.340 None of this will ever make sense to any of any of us, the moral depravity, the evil.

00:11:00.200 But we need facts. And unfortunately, this would not be the first time if it is true

00:11:06.220 that we see people whose jobs it is to go in and disrupt an active shooter or even just investigate

00:11:13.660 an allegation or a hint of trouble. Not doing that, you know, time is of the essence in matters like

00:11:20.260 this. This is why people are calling for the doors to be locked, armed guards to be there,

00:11:25.600 a retired police officer, security professionals to be hired. And I have read in the news accounts

00:11:31.500 in the last 12 or 15 hours, Megan, I'm sure you have, that there was a guard, there was a school

00:11:36.240 guard. He had a confrontation with the shooter. So we're not even sure what happened there.

00:11:40.800 And as this unfolds, but time is of the essence. And you're so right, law enforcement is already so

00:11:48.160 denigrated and castigated all across this country by people spitting on them, pigs fry them up like

00:11:54.960 bacon. These radical lefties calling for defunding the police and the firefighters who are running into

00:12:02.100 burning buildings and towards gunfire when the rest of us are running away from it. So hopefully we can get

00:12:09.140 some answers here and whatever the, whatever the facts are, it is not to be projected onto

00:12:14.640 everybody who holds that job all across this country, but our kids and, you know, Megan, I was

00:12:19.640 live on the five the other day when this was unfolding and I was very careful to not speculate, very careful

00:12:23.720 to not be out of my depth in what I was saying. But the one thing I did say that I'm going to stick

00:12:29.320 with here because I did some research last night, Megan, we have so much leftover COVID money for the

00:12:34.440 schools, billions. Take that money. Everybody have a vote in Congress today. Have Joe Biden sign it if

00:12:40.600 he needs to take that money and shift it over to securing our schools. Stop pretending that we can't

00:12:47.900 with the same amount of vigor and gusto that we use to protect them from a virus. We can protect them

00:12:53.180 from violence. We need to do that. That's a great point. I mean, we can find the money. We just gave

00:12:57.900 what 40 billion to Ukraine. We have this extra money already sitting there in the pot for schools that are no

00:13:03.180 longer dealing with a serious COVID threat. So why not reallocate? Why not shore it up? These are soft

00:13:08.260 targets, you know, and the most fruitful place for a madman with a gun is a place that's a gun-free

00:13:14.700 zone like most schools are. So it's not that every teacher needs to carry. I understand that that can be

00:13:20.120 fraught, you know, trying to say, like, let's arm all the teachers. I know a lot of teachers who would

00:13:24.380 never want to touch a gun, you know, like they know that they'd be it'd be used against them as opposed

00:13:29.120 to buy them. But security officers on campus who are well-trained and at the ready, that's a

00:13:35.720 different story. Can I ask you about Parkland, though? Because I do wonder, of course, now the

00:13:40.400 national debate has shifted to what can we do? And to some extent, to a large extent, I think it's

00:13:45.160 this is just a comfort measure, because in a free country of 330 million people with 400 million guns,

00:13:52.920 it's not going to get rid of the guns. And we're not going to get rid of every psycho with a desire to

00:13:59.080 kill. I think we can do better. We can do better. But having lived through Parkland and the

00:14:04.200 administration, what was the debate like? What are your thoughts on whether there are real reforms

00:14:08.500 yet to be had that we could implement, you know, that would make a difference? What do you think?

00:14:13.840 Megan, especially after Parkland and, of course, after Newtown, Sandy Hook, God rest their souls.

00:14:18.360 But after Parkland, there was a raging debate for quite a while and it set into many, many months.

00:14:22.720 And I was part of that. I was part of the group that was working on that. And it also included a number

00:14:27.200 of Democratic senators. I remember going back to the dining room with where the president was

00:14:32.260 and I was called in there for a meeting and he was on the phone with two Democratic senators,

00:14:37.440 one of whom was Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who was, again, in the well of the Senate the other

00:14:43.840 day, screaming about, he's so sick and tired of this, do something. You know, Chris Murphy of Connecticut

00:14:48.360 and Joe Biden as president, they sound like people who just got there. They don't sound like people

00:14:55.240 who have been in office, who could have, quote, done something before, those who want us to do

00:14:59.520 something for years. And in the case of Joe Biden, Megan, five decades. So they sound like people who

00:15:06.100 just got elected yesterday and took their seats and said, you know what, I'm going to work on first

00:15:10.040 this. And so it strikes many people as disingenuous and opportunistic and always reactive, not

00:15:15.860 reflective. After Parkland, many different debates, red flag laws, and certainly what happened in

00:15:22.960 Parkland, happened in Newtown, now just sadly happened in Uvalde. You do see a certain profile

00:15:29.240 of the shooter. We see that they're loners. They have some domestic issues. They are isolated. Maybe

00:15:36.920 some of them are bullied. There is no excuse for their depraved, evil, criminal behavior. No excuse

00:15:42.720 for it. We're looking at a profile though. Where were the warning signs? These kids are all over social

00:15:48.560 media. Why are we monitoring speech in terms of the woke agenda in terms of what did you say? What

00:15:56.560 did you mean? Calling each other names rather than wanting to know each other's names, looking each

00:16:00.400 other in the eye offline and having conversations like we are now. Why all of that versus what are

00:16:07.920 the warning signs? Parkland was particularly vexing and frustrating and maddening, Megan, because in that

00:16:14.660 instance, that shooter, Nicholas Cruz, that murderer, he had been on social media time and time again

00:16:22.980 showing his weaponry saying, I'd like to shoot up a school. He aspired to be a school shooter and

00:16:28.660 eventually got his wish. Also, the FBI had visited the different homes he had lived in dozens and dozens

00:16:36.420 of times and did not take sufficient action to have extracted this troubled individual from society

00:16:46.500 in a way that would obviously help him and protect everyone else. There are many different chutes and

00:16:53.460 ladders here. When people go down just one rabbit hole or one path, it's actually insulting because

00:16:58.420 they're excluding all the other possibilities. That's right. The thing is, the warning signs are there

00:17:04.420 and they always go to the guns, right? They always go to the guns. But the Justice Department

00:17:09.140 actually just released a study not long ago that took a comprehensive look at school shootings since

00:17:13.540 1966. And they concluded that the vast majority of school shooters get their guns from their parents'

00:17:19.220 gun cabinet. So all these background checks, it's like, you know what? Those aren't going to help.

00:17:26.880 They're not going to apply. And even Texas, Texas has got a law that says you can get a long gun if

00:17:32.180 you're 18, but not like a pistol until you're 21. A couple of other states have the same because a lot

00:17:37.380 of people are saying, why was he able to even get a long gun on AR-15 at 18? Well, some states have

00:17:42.740 said, you know what, let's raise that to 21. And they've fallen in the courts. Those those regulations

00:17:47.880 are are being struck down based on Second Amendment grounds that there's a constitutional right when

00:17:53.040 you're 18 years old. You're an adult in the eyes of the law, maybe not to drink, but that's not a

00:17:57.020 constitutional right. Right. So it's anyway, there's not that much more that Texas could have

00:18:02.080 done. So my but my point is, Kellyanne, I know the Democrats always look at the Republicans and say

00:18:06.880 guns, guns, guns. But what about looking at the Democrats and saying, what about mental health

00:18:13.420 reform? And I'm going to say it mandatory confinement for mental health risks, people who pose a risk to

00:18:21.740 the rest of our civil liberties. We're so concerned about the civil liberties of, you know, the people who may

00:18:26.820 be struggling mentally and emotionally because we have a bad history in this department back, you

00:18:30.400 know, 50 plus years ago. We've forgotten. What about the civil liberties of little 10 year old

00:18:35.320 girls who were killed yesterday? Yes, Megan, you're absolutely right. You would have been completely

00:18:39.520 right during Parkland and pre pandemic. But you are especially correct. Now, post pandemic, we've seen

00:18:46.040 the statistics we've heard from Gen Z themselves. They talk to pollsters and they say that they're

00:18:51.660 struggling with their mental health or emotional development, their loss, learning their inability to

00:18:56.480 form and retain healthy, successful relationships with peers or with adults, supervisors, teachers,

00:19:05.240 role models, people of faith leaders, whoever it is, community leaders. They are reaching out,

00:19:11.240 crying out for help. And we are ignoring them. Now, some of the money I just mentioned to you that

00:19:16.620 was left over from COVID for the schools is that designated for mental health. There's a great Wall

00:19:21.160 History Journal article just this week. Everybody can pull it up. Basically saying about 92% of the

00:19:27.180 113 billion or so that we designated or President Trump, President Biden designated last year for

00:19:32.860 COVID related school matters is unspent. And so some of it was for mental health. Let's get that. Let's

00:19:40.200 get those folks in there. Let's get them the help they need. This is a true crisis and epidemic.

00:19:44.380 And we are ignoring it. Why? Why are we looking the other way? Why are we so quick to judge and malign

00:19:51.060 and try to cancel people based on what you think they meant by what they said and not staring right

00:19:57.860 in the eyes of our mental health crisis? Is anyone going to argue that the three shooters we just

00:20:03.680 talked about in Newtown, in Parkland, in Uvalde, let alone others, we could talk about Pulse Nightclub,

00:20:10.160 we could talk about Dayton, we could talk about El Paso, we could talk about Columbine, we can talk

00:20:14.100 about Aurora, Colorado, the list of course goes on and on. But we know that there are some common

00:20:20.280 denominators here because those who survive tell us and those who don't survive, the shooters who

00:20:26.400 survive basically tell us, and those who don't survive have left a long sort of portfolio and trail

00:20:34.180 of everything that was was going wrong. Look, as I want to say again, there's no excuse for any of

00:20:40.720 them. This is moral depravity. This is evil on an entirely different level that we can't even

00:20:45.760 begin to comprehend. There are people out there who are suffering from mental health who are not going

00:20:51.540 to be the next school shooter. They're suffering now. We need to make sure this is part of the

00:20:55.720 part of the curriculum, part of what we're doing for our young people. Too much screen time is school

00:20:59.820 time. Too much access to drugs, to isolation, to bullying, to just feeling less than, frankly.

00:21:10.760 And yes, I think there is a role for the tech companies, Megan, who profit to the tune of

00:21:16.300 billions and billions of dollars off of our kids' use of social media, but also off of their misery.

00:21:21.880 I think I would love for them to come forward and pick up on the sworn congressional testimony where

00:21:27.100 some of them admitted that they know what works with teenage girls and how to get into their heads

00:21:32.640 through social media. I want them to step up on their own and do more.

00:21:39.220 Yeah. How about getting into the heads of teenage boys? Because honestly, those are the ones shooting

00:21:43.940 up schools. You can take it to the bank when you hear about a school shooting, that it's going to be

00:21:47.600 an 18, 19 year old young man who's been isolated, who's been buying guns, who's been obsessed with

00:21:54.840 shootings, who's probably been bullied or teased in his past, who's got an absentee family

00:22:00.480 situation. I mean, there is a profile and there's got to be some room for law enforcement paying

00:22:06.600 attention to that, not not preemptively depriving one of one's rights, but at least seeing if there's

00:22:12.040 a basis for getting mental health professionals, school professionals or potentially law enforcement

00:22:16.280 alerted and somehow involved. We've got it. We've got to put everything on the table.

00:22:21.700 All right. Kellyanne Conway is here to talk about her book, and we appreciate her talking about the

00:22:26.820 news with us as well. But the book is absolutely fascinating and very raw. She's very vulnerable

00:22:33.300 in it on everything, on her marriage and the whole situation with George and his tweets and her daughter

00:22:38.740 and what it was like to work for President Trump and some of the tumble inside the White House.

00:22:43.680 We're going to get into all of it. So don't go away.

00:22:45.520 I knew you a long time on Fox News before you ever managed Trump's campaign. I did not realize

00:22:56.480 you were a Jersey girl. I'm a Jersey girl, South Jersey. I was born in Camden, New Jersey,

00:23:00.780 outside of Philadelphia, Megan. And then I was raised in a very unconventional household of my mom,

00:23:06.080 her mom, and two of my mother's unmarried sisters. I call them the South Jersey's version

00:23:11.040 of the Golden Girls, these four Italian Catholic women raising me in the house and house coats

00:23:17.560 and everything. And they taught me to be a conservative, Megan, without ever having a

00:23:21.780 single political conversation that I can recall. It was just about a small, they were all small

00:23:25.500 business owners, emphasis on small faith, family, freedom, the veterans and military in our household.

00:23:31.180 And I start the whole book out by saying by every imaginable metric, I should have been a Democrat,

00:23:35.480 a liberal, a feminist, probably a man-hater too. My father left when I was three,

00:23:38.760 no child support, no alimony. I met him when I was 12. We had a loving, full present relationship.

00:23:44.140 He was an awesome pop-up to my four kids before he passed away a few years ago. And it's a great,

00:23:49.080 really, story for all of us about redemption and mercy and forgiveness. We seek it and we ought to

00:23:54.480 give it when we have that opportunity. It's really a story of second chances, but Jersey girl on the

00:23:59.560 blueberry farm. And now, you know, then George and I decided, because he was a lawyer in New York,

00:24:04.920 that we would raise our children in North Jersey, right outside the city until we moved to

00:24:08.200 Washington. So yes, I have that, I have that Jersey spirit.

00:24:11.900 That explains so much about you, about the way that you are willing to

00:24:14.340 spar with people verbally and, you know, Jersey, Jersey girls, Jersey people in general,

00:24:18.380 they're nice, but don't fight with them because they're in it for the long haul. Like they're not,

00:24:23.020 they're not afraid, which I kind of love. All right. Now I had to ask you because one of my team

00:24:27.380 in researching, you found this article in the daily mail that says they pulled up your high school

00:24:31.600 yearbook and said, your ambitions included kissing Rick Springfield at least once.

00:24:35.960 Isn't that embarrassing? I hope he's watching. I guess the offer holds. But, but it's sort of

00:24:42.980 embarrassing what you added the last minute. I thought, could anybody save me from myself that

00:24:47.280 this is going to live forever? But I have to say, I have had many accomplishments and blessings in my

00:24:53.200 life, but kissing Rick Springfield is not among them. And now we have all these young people Googling

00:24:57.080 who that is, Megan. But anyway, we can make this happen. I don't know. I interviewed him a long

00:25:02.380 time ago. He's doing some DJ work on Sirius XM. I'm, I'm, I'm hopeful, Kellyanne. I feel like

00:25:07.700 something could happen. Just put a pin in that and we'll circle back. This should not be a life goal

00:25:13.180 that goes unfulfilled. So when I knew you before the whole Trump stuff, you were Kellyanne Poles and

00:25:18.300 you were very much involved in politics. Then, and originally you backed Ted Cruz, like a lot of

00:25:23.480 conservatives. A lot of people were drawn to Ted Cruz because he's a conservative guy, not Trump.

00:25:27.460 A lot of people didn't take him seriously in 2016, before that, when he was running 15.

00:25:32.140 But you, you wound up switching to Trump and you really wound up, you, I think you are the only

00:25:39.480 female campaign manager to actually run a winning presidential campaign. Is that correct?

00:25:45.000 That is absolutely correct. And it's Donald Trump who put me there. He was different and he wanted

00:25:49.500 something different. And Megan, here's the deal about the story. I, I was plucked out of the

00:25:56.080 plain sight wilderness when I was 49, not 29 or even 39. I was 49 years old. Inauguration day

00:26:03.120 for Donald Trump was my 50th birthday, exactly that day. And so I think the blessing there is

00:26:08.400 you apply your trade, you hone your craft, you just work hard, you do the work your entire career.

00:26:14.340 I was a fully recovered attorney, 12 step program and everything. I know you know how that is.

00:26:17.880 And I had gone back into polling, which I had done for $8 an hour the summer between my junior

00:26:23.500 and senior year, went back to that professional work for Frank Lunds, work for Dick Werthlin,

00:26:27.400 who was Ronald Reagan's pollster, and then went out on my own. But no, by the time President Trump,

00:26:33.440 Mr. Trump asked me to manage the campaign, I had built up to that moment. And, but I still had such

00:26:39.600 self-doubt. And I think what really helped me is that I was sort of an outsider to the old boys

00:26:45.140 network and really the new boys network in the Republican consultancy itself, a walking

00:26:49.220 Rico violation and gravy train that they always help each other on. They had excluded me from the

00:26:54.420 big boys table many times. And I had done very well for myself. I also had sort of a mini TV

00:27:00.020 punditry career. But I think the boys excluding me from the Republican consultancy table also helped me

00:27:07.580 to get nonprofit clients, corporate clients, work on issues campaign. I was working on policy.

00:27:13.300 They were doing politics, politics, politics. And if you only ask actual active voters what they

00:27:18.600 think and how they feel, you are not talking to the other 30%, 40% in primaries, maybe 50%

00:27:25.280 of the country. So the gift of my professional career, Megan, is I have worked in all 50 states

00:27:32.800 and the territories, literally gone there and talked to the voters, talked to the consumers,

00:27:38.080 talked to the decision makers. And I had also bought a company called Woman Trend at the end of

00:27:42.880 2001. And I made it the division of the polling company. And that was the division where we did

00:27:47.880 an awful lot of work that tried to suss out the trends that were being affected by women

00:27:53.560 and the trends that were affecting women. And my job was really to tell whether it was political

00:27:59.800 America, consumer America, how to get from, I would say, mass exposure to mass consumption to

00:28:07.860 mainstreaming. Meaning a great example was soy. At the time, soy was just coming onto the market.

00:28:13.440 You saw it, but people didn't actively seek it out unless they had a dietary restriction.

00:28:17.380 Now it's much more mainstream. But the question is, even though 50%, even though 90% of the country

00:28:22.220 probably has exposure to it, do you yet have 50% plus one buying the product and buying it again

00:28:28.320 and consuming it, not just knowing it? The same applies to politics. How do we, how do we get you,

00:28:34.680 the voter, to pay attention, to think that you can trust the veracity of this particular candidate or

00:28:41.000 this issue set? And it was just the gift of my career to have done that. And I was also,

00:28:46.820 Megan, as I'm sure you were, a sort of semi-quasi student of Hillary Clinton. I had been around a

00:28:51.440 long time. I remember Bill Clinton standing up in September of 1993, eight months on the job and

00:28:56.760 saying, this is a health security card, everybody, in a primetime address. You're all going to get one.

00:29:00.980 I'm going to make sure, and Hillary's in charge of what became known as Hillary care.

00:29:06.300 So I had been a student of Hillary Clinton and I felt and told Mr. Trump the day he made me campaign

00:29:10.820 manager that some of the attributes that naturally apply to female candidates don't apply to her.

00:29:16.640 Female candidates are often seen as fresh and new, fresh face, new blood. We've never had a female

00:29:21.020 congressman. We've never had a senator. We've certainly never had a president. So that person,

00:29:26.060 people, they automatically say, you know what? I think there's this sclerotic, almost corrupt

00:29:31.880 situation. I think we need fresh blood, new face. Number two, and relatedly, women are seen sometimes

00:29:38.320 as beyond reproach and less corruptible. They just are. You've never heard the phrase,

00:29:42.280 the old girls network, because there isn't one. Number three, women are seen as peacemakers,

00:29:47.540 natural consensus builders, genuinely interested in what the other side thinks and how to come to yes,

00:29:53.260 how to get to yes and solve. That is not meant to be an overgeneralization. I'm telling you what the

00:29:57.600 data and the qualitative research has shown over the decades that the advantages some female

00:30:03.060 candidates will have over male candidates. None of those applied to Hillary Clinton. Fresh face,

00:30:08.160 new blood, beyond reproach, not corruptible. And the third one, you know, peacemaker, consensus

00:30:13.840 builder. That isn't even the way she ran. That was not who she was. But I think with Hillary Clinton,

00:30:20.180 when she both ran against Barack Obama in 2008 and lost, ran against Donald Trump in the general

00:30:26.300 election in 2016 and lost, I think it was the tale of the same Hillary, which was she was trying to,

00:30:31.840 she's trying really hard to say, I'm an experienced woman. I can do what the guys do. I can talk about

00:30:35.080 war and economy, not just abortion or education or healthcare. I could do it all. And she missed,

00:30:41.320 she missed that people also want you to be compassionate, to be empathetic.

00:30:45.980 Well, remember she had that moment after New Hampshire when she almost cried and it was like,

00:30:50.800 oh, there, there might be a human in there. And then, I don't know if you saw more recently that

00:30:55.200 she, she had a weird situation where she went on camera and she read what was going to be her victory

00:30:59.260 speech and got, and cried there. It was like, oh, it's too late for that. I don't need to be in the

00:31:05.700 bathroom with her. I don't need to be invited to wine night in Chappaqua. I'm good without it. But,

00:31:11.600 you know, again, this leads to an interesting, this leads to an interesting area because I

00:31:16.300 hearing you talk about how you studied the Clintons and your experience on like what women

00:31:21.420 like and what resonates with them and what doesn't brings me to the moment in your book after the

00:31:25.600 Access Hollywood tape came out with Trump and Billy Bush. And he asked you, do you think I should

00:31:32.940 drop out? That's what you say in the book. And you said you can't, you know, you're already on

00:31:38.400 the ballot. It's like too late. This is right before the election. He says, can we still win?

00:31:42.800 This is according to the book. And you say maybe. And you go on in the book to raise a really good

00:31:47.500 point that wound up, I think, being the settled narrative on Access Hollywood, which was you say

00:31:52.560 these things in this tape. Her husband did them. He did all this stuff and we know it. And he was

00:31:59.940 president for eight years. And to me, Kellyanne, that seems to be the wind that was sort of behind

00:32:06.440 Trump's back when he went into that debate. Remember where they brought the Bill Clinton

00:32:11.240 accusers were there and it sort of did shift the narrative. And I remember thinking,

00:32:15.580 OK, we need better. We need better choices here because nobody wants more of Bill Clinton.

00:32:22.600 Absolutely no one.

00:32:24.780 Right. And even when you talk about Bill Clinton, Megan, I mean, it's very clear,

00:32:27.840 as I write in the book, that Hillary Clinton, she was too much Hillary and not enough Clinton.

00:32:31.640 There wasn't the charm and the connectedness and somebody who looked like she enjoyed meeting

00:32:36.800 people. It was all very contrived. And yes, she called she referred to the Trump voters in one of

00:32:42.640 the worst days of her campaign is, quote, deplorable and irredeemable. But it also just wasn't clear that

00:32:48.840 she particularly liked being around people. Where is the evidence exactly? And so she didn't have her

00:32:54.080 husband's gift for that. But but I think more to the point, let me just clarify a few things,

00:32:58.920 because the screaming headlines from the mainstream media have had that Donald Trump wanted to quit.

00:33:03.600 I never used the word quit. He didn't use the word quit. We were talking about the paragraph that

00:33:08.520 precedes what you just read was us talking about the fact that members of the Republican Party,

00:33:15.320 donors, senators, people at the RNC who had sway over such things had unendorsed him. These

00:33:22.100 elected officials were unendorsing him that day, calling for him to step aside and then speculating

00:33:28.460 to the press who was all too hungry to run with it, that they could rip him off the ballot. They

00:33:34.000 can push him off the ballot. They could basically erase his nomination. And I told him, that's not

00:33:39.360 true. They can't do that. The ballots are already printed.

00:33:42.340 Well, let's just ask, because what you say in the book is Trump asked you, quote, should I get out of

00:33:47.080 the race? Meaning before they do that, you know, before that there, we're talking about how, if you

00:33:53.760 look at the paragraph or paragraphs before that, we're talking about how the rumors were that they

00:33:58.660 were going to force him off the ballot. And so I think there was, there was some attractiveness in

00:34:05.260 trying to get ahead of that. And so, and the answer was, they can't do that. They can't. And I know

00:34:10.640 there, look, there were people actively trying to have a Mike Pence, Paul Ryan ticket and get

00:34:15.740 president to get Mr. Trump off the ticket. Look at all the people who unendorsed him,

00:34:21.480 continue to criticize him all the way into his victory. And then he wins and they're freaking

00:34:25.700 out like, well, gosh, I didn't give a penny. I said all these terrible things about him. How do I get

00:34:30.180 back in? But no, you know, he's not a quitter and he's also, but he also doesn't like to lose.

00:34:36.640 And I think what he did is recognize that people, the fact that people will debate and talk about

00:34:45.560 what affects them, excuse me, what, excuse me, what offends them, but they vote according to what

00:34:49.720 affects them. And I think in 2020, there was a little bit of that with COVID that people were

00:34:54.880 affected by that. And we had all these crazy ways of how you can vote that were different,

00:34:59.980 more people voting in more ways over more time than ever before. But folks also had that very much on

00:35:05.380 their mind. And that, that was affecting them, not just defending them when it came to COVID. So

00:35:10.840 it was a very different situation. Your experience with him as a top female in the White House was

00:35:16.640 very interesting to me when I read the book, because of course, as, as everybody knows, I asked

00:35:20.500 Trump a very tough question about his language with respect to women and some of the treatment of

00:35:25.320 women. And he didn't much like the question, but he handled it just fine. And then the sort of

00:35:30.820 narrative was out there and, and ran in part because of how he responded to that question

00:35:36.520 after the fact, but your experience with him is one-on-one and it's extended. And my, what I

00:35:43.880 gleaned from the book is it was nothing but positive and actually quite protective of you. And he stood up

00:35:51.080 for you many times when that sort of boys network that, you know, is kind of popping up in corners here

00:35:55.340 and there and the other, other, other places, he stood up for you. And the, like for the one time,

00:36:00.900 oh, I don't know, what was the situation where Sean Spicer went out there and said, you'd been

00:36:05.420 counseled. And Trump called him in there and said, how dare you don't, don't you say that about her?

00:36:10.120 You don't counsel her. We don't talk like that here.

00:36:13.500 He said that to the assistant White House counsel who had never met the president. And I said, oh,

00:36:18.800 I'm so sorry you had to go through that. And he said, I said, but what were you thinking is

00:36:21.740 why I had never met him before? So this was kind of fun, but no, he was protective. And he also,

00:36:27.840 and the president was very protective of me through the very dark days of my family situation as well.

00:36:33.340 And I do write in the book that there were two men in my life, my husband and my boss, Megan,

00:36:37.520 I don't equate the two. One is a job. One is my marriage. So I don't equate the two. You know,

00:36:42.680 your marriage vows are supposed to have no term limit. They're not a job, it's your life. And,

00:36:46.760 but there were many, many days, Megan, if not months where Donald Trump was very protective of

00:36:53.660 me knowing that it was incredibly difficult for my children and me to endure all of that. And I

00:36:59.640 felt it was almost a safe place to be honestly, to put my head down and do my work. And I appreciate

00:37:04.680 that. I appreciate the first lady Melania Trump checking in regularly. I appreciate the president

00:37:08.200 not talking about how it all was affecting him because, you know, he loves his own Twitter feed.

00:37:14.280 He's going to go pay attention to George Conway's Twitter feed. He's a president of the United

00:37:17.220 States. He's got a lot going on. He's worried about Putin and Kim Jong-un. He's not worried

00:37:20.840 about George Conway's tweets. And he rarely mentioned George's, George and his tweets to me.

00:37:25.840 Other people were always mentioning George Conway's tweets to him. They do to this moment.

00:37:31.580 They print out stuff, they fill his head with, you know, what he would refer to as fake news

00:37:36.360 headlines or tweets to try to get them all riled up. But I appreciate the fact that he was a very good

00:37:42.560 boss to me. I know that is not the case for all women in the workplace. He was a great boss. And

00:37:48.680 I write in the book, Megan, something you'll appreciate as a mom of school-aged children.

00:37:52.280 The fact, the facts are that at one point, an extended point over several years in the White

00:37:58.040 House, working in the Trump White House were Mercedes Schlapp, Brooke Rollins, Ivanka Trump,

00:38:02.320 Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and me. I looked up one day and noticed the five of us in a meeting,

00:38:07.340 all with the highest rank you can have in the West Wing and the White House, assistant to the

00:38:11.060 president, in this meeting at 8.20 a.m. We have 19 children between the five of us,

00:38:16.720 ages 2 to 16 at the time, 12 daughters and seven sons. Go show me what company, what workplace,

00:38:24.280 the five of us would have had the highest rank along with the men in the place, able to be there at 8.20

00:38:30.080 in the morning. It means kids were off to school, daycare, dogs had been fed and walked. We were all

00:38:35.300 there dressed and ready to go with our head in the game in a very serious meeting. And that's the

00:38:42.080 Donald Trump White House. People can brag all they want. Oh, we're 100% female. We're feminists. We

00:38:47.760 have a family-friendly company. Just read our corporate handbook, pages 562 to 572. We'll tell

00:38:52.960 you all about it. I don't want to read it in a corporate handbook, Megan. It's meaningless.

00:38:55.960 I want to see it in practice. And I could not have had that job if it were a different kind of

00:39:01.840 president with a different kind of philosophy for working moms. Last point on that. I don't

00:39:06.600 recall ever going to the president until it was time to leave and invoking my children to him.

00:39:11.780 In other words, I can't do X. I can't go to Y because of my kids. It was never that. Never

00:39:20.280 asked for special treatment or special favors. It was just implicit that if we needed to run to the

00:39:25.080 school or come in a little later, leave a little early, we can do that and still be up there with the

00:39:30.320 men. I don't think the men understand it, to be honest with you. I joke in the book that the

00:39:36.300 new boys network that I dealt with in the Republican consultancy, Megan, kind of followed me into the

00:39:41.420 White House too. Were their biggest decisions in the morning? Should I go to the Hay Adams or the

00:39:45.900 Four Seasons for breakfast? And I'm making breakfast for four kids and looking, mom, where's my shoe?

00:39:50.540 I don't know, honey. Had two feet yesterday. I'm sure they're here somewhere. And the big decision for

00:39:55.260 some of the men I worked with whose families, by and large, weren't there with them. Some of them

00:39:59.140 left their families and their spouses somewhere else to help raise the kid. But when you're the

00:40:04.440 mom, the kids have to be with you, of course. And their big decision is, do I work on legs or arms?

00:40:08.920 Do I do hot yoga today or do I run? That's all fine. I wouldn't give it up for the world. But you

00:40:15.060 know, as a working mom, that our job is never done. You know, your kids are probably FaceTiming you now

00:40:20.240 that the school nurse is calling you. You forgot to send the text that you did last night at two in the

00:40:26.440 morning to a teacher. I mean, this is our job. It's the best job in the world. But I don't think

00:40:32.000 I could have done it in a lot. I know I couldn't have done it in a lot of workplaces the way I did

00:40:35.580 it in Donald Trump's White House. How old were your kids when you entered the White House?

00:40:40.240 They had just turned seven. They were seven, eight, 12, and 12. And as I said famously at the time,

00:40:47.740 people were so interested. Why isn't Kellyanne going to the White House? And I was very honest about it.

00:40:51.300 I said, oh, I can tell you. Number one, I'm staring at a goldmine of life-changing money.

00:40:57.040 And I'm staring at it and I'm running toward it. I'm inching toward it. I was very frank about that.

00:41:01.540 And secondly, most importantly, the vista through which I make all decisions, the lens through which

00:41:09.440 I make all decisions, Megan, was I said at the time, quote, my kids are four crappy ages for mom

00:41:13.940 to be in the White House. And I remember Steve Bannon saying, just come early, do the morning shows

00:41:18.120 and leave at three. And I said, what, what am I, a banker? I mean, leave at three. How can I do that?

00:41:22.680 And so, but I worked it out because I felt that I would be supported there. And we also lived super

00:41:29.460 close to the White House, which made a big difference. You know, if you're just going to

00:41:32.200 sit in traffic or you can't get to this kid's school in enough time, if I had to walk to work,

00:41:36.800 I could. Secret Service didn't appreciate that. But if I had to walk to work, I could. If I had to get

00:41:41.660 home quickly, I could. Megan, that makes a big difference. Look, my situation may seem unique. I may be one of

00:41:47.720 the most high profile women of the 3 million who were pushed out of the workforce because of the

00:41:52.780 second school year starting online in the fall of 2020, which is why I left the White House.

00:41:58.400 Right. That's interesting.

00:41:59.580 But you know what? That's millions of women. But for me, I can't complain at all because like women

00:42:04.520 all over this country, Megan, you just figure it out. Your family, your children comes first.

00:42:09.260 I didn't always do it perfectly. I wasn't there for every single thing I wanted to be there for.

00:42:14.460 But I also, and I think this is a lesson to young professionals also, I also learned to say no.

00:42:20.340 When I was younger, I was afraid to say no. And I tell young people, especially women,

00:42:25.160 learn to accept the word no more than you say it. You will be rejected. You will be excluded. You

00:42:29.580 will be passed over. You won't get that seat in that college or grad school or that job or promotion.

00:42:34.100 You really wanted, worked hard for, and believed you deserved. It's okay. Dust yourself off. You're

00:42:39.380 resilient. You'll learn from all that. But as I get older, it's a gift, Megan,

00:42:43.140 for people of our age and stage, if I may, to learn to say no. And the one thing I said no to

00:42:48.140 from the beginning, which everybody else in the White House wanted to say yes to, was the foreign

00:42:51.280 trips. They're amazing. To go with the President of the United States to foreign countries on these

00:42:56.100 foreign trips, I mean, there's nothing like them. But I had said no to that from the beginning because

00:43:00.180 you're away for five, seven, nine days at a time. And I thought that would be a good time

00:43:03.540 to get work done in the White House or on Capitol Hill, whatever we were working on,

00:43:07.820 and also be home with the kids every night. So it's all about choices and priorities for each of us.

00:43:12.580 Well, that's one of the hardest things is when you have to travel, extended travel for work

00:43:16.080 and leave your kids at home. It's like, especially because I know you, like I, are on the older side

00:43:22.900 of motherhood. And there's not like, I don't have my mom or Doug's mom here that could swoop in and

00:43:28.340 watch the kids. And you know, they're with like a really trusted family member who absolutely adores

00:43:31.920 them. No offense to the nanny, but it's like, it's just not the same, you know? So it's, I rarely

00:43:37.600 accept long overseas trips. I mean, the only ones I've really done in the past few years are

00:43:41.940 Putin, which was worth it, but it has to be kind of that level to get you to leave your kids.

00:43:47.200 So, um, well, let's, we, we have plenty of time left, but, um, let's start on George. Cause

00:43:53.100 when I listen, you talk about it, I think about when, when I get pulled and be pulled between work

00:43:57.700 and home, it's really between work and my kids. Like when you have four kids, I've got three around the

00:44:03.220 same ages. They have to come first. They're, you know, they're dependents. And so the spouse

00:44:08.220 sometimes moves to third place because you got to do your job and you got to take care of your kids.

00:44:12.860 And the spouse can move down in the, in the rankings for the time being. And I wonder whether

00:44:17.700 you think, you know, cause I've read the book and I know all the writings about George and how betrayed

00:44:21.600 you felt by the number of tweets and so on, not to put the blame on you. Let me make that clear.

00:44:26.560 But like, do you think he felt abandoned? You know, do you think that's what led to

00:44:32.180 him and his relationship with Twitter and you know, what you clearly felt was a betrayal of the

00:44:38.600 marriage? I'm just a wife who knows George Conway better than anyone. And I'm not a psychoanalyst.

00:44:46.100 I'm not a psychiatrist. I don't appreciate when people like George pretend they are and do some

00:44:49.820 armchair analysis of a president state of mind. Although if he wanted to do that for president Trump,

00:44:54.120 I really wish he would dust off the DSM five right now and go analyze the guy in the white house.

00:45:00.200 But I, I don't know if the word abandonment, I mean, relationships need tending obviously,

00:45:04.720 and they involve two people. And I remember my cousin Renee asking me about somebody years ago and

00:45:10.280 saying there had been a falling out in family members, friend of mine had nothing to do with

00:45:15.020 our particular family. And she said, well, whose fault was it? And I said, you know, Renee,

00:45:19.340 I think after 11 years, it's everybody's fault. In other words, it's how can you just blame one

00:45:23.760 person or the other? So sure. That probably is true here. Although Megan, I don't think a couple

00:45:29.280 of things should be lost here. And I write about them very explicitly and in a very raw fashion,

00:45:33.680 very quickly. Number one, George and I made the decision as a couple and as a family to move to

00:45:38.800 Washington DC and for both of us to take jobs in president Trump's administration. President Trump

00:45:46.180 offered George a big job, the head of the civil division at the department of justice. George accepted

00:45:51.260 that job. He started interviewing staff. He was all ready to go. So we bought a house. I moved the

00:45:56.260 kids to school. I would never do that. Um, if, if my spouse, if my husband and their father didn't agree

00:46:02.460 to that. So that's number one. Number two, make no mistake. George's loyalty, if not fealty, his vows

00:46:08.180 are not to Donald Trump. They're not to any president, any individual except me. I'm his wife. I'm the one

00:46:14.580 he stood on the altar at the Basilica Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul on April 28th, 2001, in front of

00:46:20.100 hundreds of loved ones and God with five priests on the altar and made those vows. So he doesn't

00:46:25.540 need to be quote loyal to Donald Trump or the Republican party, or you name it. It's about love,

00:46:31.900 honor, and cherish your spouse and the career choices she is making, which, you know, not so long

00:46:36.860 before that. George was not just applauding my career choices. He was insisting upon them.

00:46:42.460 I write in the book, Megan, that people say without Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump would not

00:46:47.100 have been elected president in 2016. That's debatable, but what will never be in doubt

00:46:51.620 is that without George T. Conway III, I could not have taken my shot with all due respect to Hamilton

00:46:56.960 or Eminem. I could not have taken my shot without George insisting I do, giving me that courage,

00:47:03.500 that backbone, and offering to help more at home and with the kids. That allowed me to be the

00:47:08.300 campaign manager at that level. So that all fell apart. Let me pause it there. Let me pause it there

00:47:12.860 because I've got to squeeze in a quick break. But I love that you set it up that way because I think

00:47:17.920 a lot of us understand, especially women with big jobs, it's hard to make it work, especially when you

00:47:23.980 have a family, if you don't have a supportive husband. I mean, it's just very, very hard. And you did.

00:47:28.980 You did for the vast majority of your relationship. And then things took a turn. There's a scene in

00:47:34.640 the book in which Kellyanne is told that George has just sent out a negative tweet about the

00:47:38.560 president and her response is, that's not possible. George doesn't tweet. Yet there it was. Okay,

00:47:44.660 we'll get to that right after this quick break with Kellyanne Conway staying with us. So glad to

00:47:49.000 have her here today. So much more to get into. Don't go away.

00:47:52.620 So Kellyanne, I mentioned before the break, that's not possible. George doesn't tweet. Yet there it

00:48:00.980 was. Totally out of character, you write. Why wouldn't he give me a heads up? While the tweet

00:48:05.180 itself was fairly mundane, the duplicity of it stung me. Your children did not approve. Claudia and

00:48:11.500 Georgie, they were finishing up in sixth grade, did not think that was cool of dad. And then you write,

00:48:16.040 for the first time since George and I had gotten serious, I was looking at the possibility that the man

00:48:21.600 who had always had my back might one day stab me in it. Oh, must have been awful.

00:48:29.960 It's really sad, but it's also very confusing. And George then deleted that tweet and a bunch of

00:48:35.000 other tweets and didn't tweet for a while. I go through that in the book. It's difficult to remember

00:48:40.100 every move and occurrence at the time. So I tried to go back, Megan, and just hook together the facts

00:48:48.800 of when these tweets were coming out. But five days before that, four or five days before that tweet,

00:48:53.480 George had put out a public statement, not on Twitter, that he was withdrawing his name from

00:48:59.600 consideration for the Senate confirmed position at the Department of Justice. Big job to head up the

00:49:04.000 civil division. And he said very clearly in that statement, anybody can pull it up right now. I have

00:49:07.800 it in the book, Megan. He just says, President Trump, thank you for nominating me. I think we just,

00:49:13.700 Kellyanne and I just think at this time, it's hard for both of us to have these jobs.

00:49:17.580 And then he very explicitly says, I support, I continue to support the work of your administration.

00:49:22.460 And of course, my wonderful wife, Kellyanne, that is days before this tweet.

00:49:26.940 And so I know the best man from his wedding talked to him, you know, you shouldn't do that.

00:49:31.440 He deleted some tweets. And I think people should know that in the year of the tweet,

00:49:36.060 2016 known as the year of the tweet, George Conway sent zero tweets. That's why I said to Sean

00:49:40.220 Spicer, that's not possible. George doesn't tweet. I really thought it was like one of those

00:49:43.720 fake accounts or somebody had hacked him. There was no way I thought it was him.

00:49:48.360 And then he didn't answer the phone. I was trying to verify whether or not it was him. So it was all

00:49:52.640 very confusing and ultimately unsettling and a little embarrassing for me to understand why that

00:49:58.740 was happening in such a public way. It was just not George. And I think, look, we all do things that

00:50:02.740 are out of character. There's no question. But this went on and on then for the next several years and

00:50:08.180 the mainstream media could not get enough of it. And they eventually went from covering George's tweets

00:50:14.480 to having George cover everything from impeachments. And he did have experience in impeachments,

00:50:19.400 but only because he had helped impeach William Jefferson Clinton, Bill Clinton. They had him on

00:50:24.500 talking about how to be a campaign manager. Then he's meeting with somebody about, he's a rented

00:50:29.880 quote from the New York Times on COVID. It's just, they couldn't get enough of him.

00:50:33.380 And make no mistake, he is mentioned most in the media, particularly at that time for years,

00:50:39.960 as, quote, Kellyanne Conway's husband. Now that's very, that's fascinating to me. And even on The

00:50:45.560 View, you had John McCain's daughter talking incessantly about Kellyanne Conway's husband.

00:50:49.740 Get it? And so I think we all need to see, you know, from where we've come, how we're known,

00:50:56.120 et cetera. I'm very happy to stand on my own. But folks, you know, thought that that was then a

00:51:02.120 proxy to dip into my marriage and then my children. And it was not. And Megan, have you seen these

00:51:07.240 people? You're talking about very thin skin, terrified, troubled people living in glass houses.

00:51:12.820 Yes. I love that point in the book. First of all, the Jersey girl does not sit quietly when people

00:51:18.780 attack her and she does not hold back. And one of the themes of the book, as I read it, was it

00:51:23.840 didn't matter whether it was a media person, someone in the White House, someone in the president's

00:51:27.920 family, you give as good as you get. And they're going to get an elbow in the face if they come

00:51:33.060 for you. And I like that about you because not a lot of women have it, Kellyanne. But you don't

00:51:38.540 suffer fools. I never go first, though. I never draw first blood. No, no, no. I know that.

00:51:43.020 But when you when it's drawn upon me, I'm going to get the last word. I'll give one example.

00:51:47.060 There was an example you talk about in the book where Chris Wallace tries to get into

00:51:50.560 your marriage. It's like you're giving him a political interview and he wants to get into

00:51:53.140 your marriage. And it's listen, it's I understand water cooler people talk. My God, the husband's

00:51:59.180 tweeting against the wife's boss. This is weird. But but like to ask you who are not a political

00:52:04.800 candidate who worked for a president about your marriage, because that's I never did that.

00:52:09.940 Honestly, I was on the air when this stuff was happening. I remember thinking this is very

00:52:13.000 inappropriate, not to mention what they did to Claudia. Totally inappropriate by any measure,

00:52:17.900 your daughter. But I just thought that to your point, people have their own. They live in glass

00:52:23.720 houses, especially news anchors. And so Chris Wallace comes for you asking about your marriage.

00:52:27.480 And you said something like, oh, what are you, Oprah now?

00:52:31.620 Exactly. Although she might be too classy to ask. And also, you know, he prefaced it, Megan,

00:52:38.220 by saying, my viewers want me to ask you. And it turns out his viewers did not want him to ask

00:52:43.140 that because he got excoriated for the rest of the day, I'm told by people who look at social media.

00:52:49.420 He got excoriated to the point where the next morning he texts me. He's like, are we OK?

00:52:53.120 I didn't respond because I don't think he was OK in that moment. Look, that's just for kicks and clicks.

00:52:58.860 And it's whether it's beta or work yesterday, Chris Wallace in the interview, other people trying to

00:53:03.980 make. I mean, it's people looking for kicks and clicks. And we, you know, God forbid, we can't do

00:53:09.780 it under any circumstance. But to use my marriage, and I didn't go back at Wolf Blitzer. I didn't go

00:53:15.500 back at Dana Bash. I didn't go back at Chris Wallace about their own personal lives. Should I have

00:53:21.100 Megan? I guess I could have. I know a thing or two about them. But you know what? You got to keep it

00:53:25.760 classy. You can't always respond in kind and put yourself in the gutter with them. Just can't.

00:53:31.300 Mm hmm. I know it's very tempting to do so, but you didn't. But you did fight. I mean,

00:53:35.900 you didn't go low, but you did punch back in the face, which I thought was rhetorically,

00:53:39.560 which I think is appropriate. You didn't let the people get away with it who thought your marriage

00:53:43.600 was fair game when you were on to talk about the president and the White House and policies.

00:53:47.280 And it was just low. It just felt skeevy to me when I saw people doing it. And I again,

00:53:51.860 I understand it's interesting on a water cooler level. That doesn't mean it raises to the level of

00:53:57.960 when confronting Kellyanne Conway about the White House and the policy. You have the nerve to ask

00:54:03.120 her about something that personal. And the only reason I'm asking you about it now is because you

00:54:07.040 wrote all about it in your book. But like, I wouldn't have done that. You know, I mean,

00:54:10.420 I would never ask you about something like that unless you said you wanted to talk about it.

00:54:14.420 So back on that subject.

00:54:16.160 George was never asked about me. He was never asked about me, Megan, which is really the rich,

00:54:20.720 ironic point from the media. Is that right?

00:54:22.220 I'm the one with the big job in the White House who's coming on TV in my professional capacity as

00:54:27.760 senior counsel to the president with something to say. He's going on as Kellyanne Conway's husband.

00:54:33.040 They give him an airing expertise. George is a brilliant person. I'm sure he has plenty to say.

00:54:36.960 But he made a deal with his friend, Jake Tapper and others. Don't ask me about Kellyanne.

00:54:41.820 So it's really, I mean, it's not even bias. It's like a quadruple standard. It's like the woman in

00:54:46.840 the White House who's here to talk about things in the White House is going to be asked about her

00:54:50.720 husband who's known as Kellyanne Conway's husband. But Kellyanne Conway's husband cannot be asked

00:54:54.960 about his wife who works in the White House. Follow?

00:54:57.220 Wow. And remember, remember when Hillary Clinton was asked and I thought rightfully responded

00:55:01.100 about something when she was running and they were like, well, what does your husband think?

00:55:04.100 And to her credit, she was like, what does my husband think? What? My husband's not running.

00:55:07.540 I'm running. You want to know what I think? I'll tell you. And I was like, that's a good moment for

00:55:10.900 her. But it's the same. It's like, why? Why did they feel so comfortable asking you about

00:55:15.620 George's opinions? These same anchors who cut a deal with him not to ask him about you felt totally

00:55:19.360 comfortable asking you about him. And he's not even in the White House. Right. It's like they're

00:55:23.960 just trying to sow discord. It's juicy. They like you say, they want clicks. And it's it's

00:55:29.840 uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable for me to watch. It's not it's one of the many reasons we

00:55:34.920 have to hate the media. But back on the other subject, which is more important, and that's

00:55:39.060 you, because I find this fascinating as a professional woman, like what you were dealing

00:55:42.300 with, because there's a lot of pressures in the White House. It's not an easy job. And you're

00:55:45.440 dealing with, you know, young children, which is not easy job either. And you write about George

00:55:50.200 and the love, the love that he was developing for Twitter. I think a lot of people have seen this

00:55:54.820 happen, whether it's a spouse or a child or themselves. And you say you were not prepared

00:55:59.540 for the cult of George Conway. He would be the biggest get of the Never Trump movement movement.

00:56:03.840 Very true. But the amount that he was getting drawn into the tweets, the ferocity you write of

00:56:09.820 his tweets accelerated. Clearly, you write he was cheating by tweeting. I was having a hard time

00:56:15.560 competing with his new fling. Explain that. Yeah. And I go on to say, Megan, and why would I?

00:56:22.000 His new fling is called Twitter and she's not even hot. She has no personality. And, you know,

00:56:26.920 that's my tongue in cheek way of revealing what was very painful. I think that our disagreement

00:56:32.420 is not really about Donald Trump. Obviously, he can have his opinion. I can have my opinion

00:56:36.580 about Donald Trump. This is America. I think the disagreement is how we spend our time. And I just

00:56:41.240 felt he was increasingly in spending his time on Twitter. He left the law firm. He was doing the

00:56:48.780 Lincoln Project, I guess, a little bit, although the founders of the Lincoln Project now go after

00:56:52.060 him and say, oh, I hardly knew him. Okay. I think it helped them a great deal, the sort of washed up

00:56:57.940 shop-worn consultants who had never won a presidential race to speak of as campaign manager to have

00:57:03.020 Killian Conway's husband involved in that. But I felt it was, I wish George had owned it more.

00:57:09.920 In other words, I didn't have him on Twitter notifications. I didn't see what he was doing.

00:57:13.600 Plenty of people were following him and then putting it right in front of the president,

00:57:16.960 thinking it would hurt me professionally and personally, wound me personally, shame on them.

00:57:22.800 But I wasn't paying attention to everything he was doing. I was very busy with my job. And of course,

00:57:27.140 my first and most important job is mom. But why didn't he just own it? Why not just say to me,

00:57:32.240 I've got an op-ed coming out in the Washington Post tomorrow. I'm polishing off my op-ed in the

00:57:36.040 New York Times while you're up helping four kids with homework or doing the dishes. Why not just

00:57:40.200 say, you're not going to believe the ad were coming out with the Lincoln Project? Don't I deserve

00:57:44.640 advance notice and some transparency? Why would I find out when everybody else did? Or frankly,

00:57:50.300 Megan, after editors at those newspapers or Lincoln Project people found out, why would I find out

00:57:56.000 after the fact? Is that what I deserve? And is that what I deserve because of where I work?

00:58:00.860 And how I vote? And I have to ask that same question again and again and again, when it comes to my

00:58:06.780 children, again and again, when it comes to my inadvertent revelation of sexual assault, again

00:58:12.740 and again, about being a working mom. In other words, am I less human? Am I less valuable? Is my

00:58:21.300 veracity less just because of where I work? And I think that's what happened. We imbue people

00:58:26.640 with more credibility, with more competence, with more compassion, with more

00:58:32.480 positive attributes, depending on where they sit on Donald Trump. This should not be.

00:58:39.660 We are all individuals.

00:58:41.260 Well, certainly not in your marriage. I mean, do you-

00:58:43.400 Certainly not in my marriage. That's right. So look, I'm very frank about it. I think it was,

00:58:47.840 I think George and I are two people always took our wedding vows seriously and faithfully.

00:58:53.000 And I felt increasingly, I just couldn't compete with the likes, the followers, the attention,

00:58:59.040 you know, feeding the beast. And I mean, it's funny because I couldn't watch all this as I was

00:59:04.260 in the White House, Megan. I wasn't paid to read about myself or to read George's tweets,

00:59:08.740 but I've looked at them since in study for the book. And it's very shocking just to see,

00:59:13.200 you know, George has sent, by the time Donald Trump left office, George had sent about 80,000 tweets,

00:59:17.480 eight zero. And I don't have the number right in front of me, but the president's official

00:59:20.680 account was something like 30,000. It was a fraction. And isn't that ironic?

00:59:25.300 Wow. What was it like? And I know George, he was a very successful lawyer, but I know you had a house

00:59:30.720 in Northern New Jersey, as you pointed out, and he could go there and he could work. But

00:59:34.020 when you'd be at home in, you know, outside of, well, in DC, when you were at home and you,

00:59:41.100 he'd been tweeting and he'd been in the news. And I know at one point MSNBC put him on as their

00:59:44.920 impeachment specialist. I mean, it's got, it got crazy. The cult of George Conway is real.

00:59:49.220 All as a result of you. I mean, you know, with all due respect to George,

00:59:53.020 given his legal success, it was really his marriage to you that made people want to hear

00:59:57.600 from him. Would you have dinner together? Would it be like, you can cut the tension with a knife?

01:00:03.840 How would it feel inside the house?

01:00:06.300 Well, I really tried to keep things together, definitely in our marriage, but certainly for

01:00:11.200 the children and to have, you know, sanctity within that, within the house. But we really couldn't

01:00:18.220 talk about Donald Trump and the tweets and all, because George would just become angry. He just,

01:00:23.220 you know, everything was Trump, Trump, Trump. And I had just spent the entire day with Trump,

01:00:27.100 Trump, Trump working. And now I'm going to come home with kids, kids, kids, kids,

01:00:30.360 and, and talk about that all over again or hear about that. And I can't even say, say it was

01:00:35.400 often logical or even linear or rational or calm. It was just, you know, you work for about,

01:00:41.600 I write in my book, you work for a madman, you're ruining yourself. And I write in the book that

01:00:47.160 I did not want to be stuck in a cable news segment in the master bedroom, that I can hear

01:00:52.900 that all day long, where people who don't know Donald Trump are talking about what's in his head

01:00:59.100 or why he did X or whether he's going to get arrested or impeached or indicted and all these

01:01:02.840 things that we were promised. I mean, Megan, to be part of the cabal that owes everybody an apology

01:01:10.040 over Russia collusion or falsely tweeting or saying things that are not true, like bounties being put

01:01:18.900 on the heads of soldiers in Afghanistan. I mean, goodness, I think John Bolton said that wasn't

01:01:24.720 true. The Biden administration came out early on and said they see no evidence of that. But, you know,

01:01:29.540 these tweets live and the conversation goes on. I just think it's that there's no accountability

01:01:34.180 if you're a part of the mob. And look, I think it's also very unusual. Well, it is very unusual,

01:01:41.880 but it must have been very difficult for some people to realize that we have a husband who's

01:01:50.160 known first and best because of his conservative wife who works for Donald Trump. And think about

01:01:57.820 that for a moment. Hillary Clinton went on to be Senator, Secretary of State. We know her first and

01:02:03.340 most through her husband. That's just a fact. And that list that I just said, people who are

01:02:08.680 daughters of or wives of or girlfriends of, that's a very long list. Let's not name names,

01:02:14.600 but let's know in our heads. My path in this situation was completely unique. It's very rare

01:02:22.420 that the husband's known for the woman, especially when it comes to conservative politics. So,

01:02:28.180 you know, also I think people out there thought this would create division between Donald Trump and

01:02:33.260 me or maybe create division between my children and me. And that didn't happen. Shame on them for

01:02:39.060 thinking that they were in charge of creating division between the president and his senior

01:02:42.420 counselor. It seems like Trump was pretty restrained. He hasn't sent out a lot of tweets.

01:02:46.860 I sent one recently and he sent one during that. But like, I think it's only about two tweets on

01:02:50.460 George Conway, which for Trump is very restrained. And that's obviously out of respect for you.

01:02:56.200 But I wonder, Kellyanne, like if you. Because I know I know you're not a psychologist, but when I

01:03:01.680 read the book, I thought, OK, so. He either feels abandoned by Kellyanne for Trump, you know, like

01:03:07.320 he feels like he lost his wife to this job. And he misses her and he feels, you know, it's bringing up

01:03:13.500 insecurities for him. I know I'm doing Oprah, but this is my own personal speculation or he just

01:03:19.600 did a great job. Or he just, you know, he hates Trump so much that he's he's putting it on her.

01:03:26.800 But I and that's an easy place to go because he joined Lincoln Project and all that and all of

01:03:30.680 his tweets that were so angry against Donald Trump. My own view of it is I'm going to put it more in

01:03:35.360 category number one, just because if you look at when he started, like Trump hadn't even done that

01:03:39.900 much. And he and all the controversy about Trump prior to running that didn't turn him off.

01:03:44.340 I feel like he he feels like he lost you to another man and he hated that man and it spilled

01:03:51.180 over onto you and he just couldn't control it. I forgive me, but that was my own take on it.

01:03:57.960 It could be again. I don't want to psychoanalyze George. I know what our conversations have been

01:04:01.880 and I know what our conversations haven't been. And this is it. George is a very, very smart person.

01:04:08.380 And I, you know, will always be blessed to be his wife of decades. And these four children we have,

01:04:16.660 George is an only child. I'm an only child, Megan. But these four kids have each other and

01:04:20.040 God willing, so will their kids and their kids' kids. And that that will hands down be my greatest

01:04:25.020 legacy, these kids. And so my greatest blessing, of course. But, you know, all that said, and there is

01:04:31.340 a but I think George is somebody who spends his time exactly as he wants to. And I'm not sure that

01:04:37.500 that includes, you know, me that often. And I think that you, I tell my children the three most

01:04:44.960 important decisions you'll ever make are where you go to school because yes, it has something to do

01:04:49.440 with your career, but also your lifelong friendships. And maybe if you live somewhere

01:04:52.740 different geographically, you end up there. So where you go to school, whom you marry, or if you don't

01:04:56.700 marry, it's your choice. And what you do when no one's looking. In other words, how you spend your time.

01:05:01.620 And I feel that here. So, but George and I are very cordial to each other. I mean, we share four

01:05:09.100 kids. It's a chaotic, it's a chaotic life. And we have kids who go to school in different cities. So as

01:05:15.360 their two parents, we're constantly going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And I credit

01:05:19.700 both of us for doing that, for making it work, because it'd be very easy to be selfish as the parent and

01:05:26.100 say, you're all going to school in X city, you're all going to do this. And lots of people who run

01:05:30.240 around saying, I'm an independent thinker. I'm an open-minded mom. My kids can do whatever they

01:05:34.680 want. And then they tell their kids what they, where they have to go to school, what they have

01:05:38.060 to eat, who their friends can be and not be, what they must do. I wanted to be the mom. And George is

01:05:43.360 supporting this also as the dad who tells the kids, be self-designated, be independent, make your own

01:05:50.020 choices. And in that case, you know, our two younger daughters wanted to continue in school where they

01:05:56.760 started in the second and fourth grades. And our eighth grade is starting high school.

01:06:00.240 In the, in the fall. So that's where they are. And then our two older ones really wanted to finish

01:06:04.900 the academic careers where they started, which was North Jersey. And so we respect that and we

01:06:10.620 accommodate that. And that requires a great deal of, I think, sacrifice for, for George and me, but my

01:06:17.000 goodness, that's what parents are. It's never about you again. So I don't, I write in my book, you know,

01:06:22.100 people want to focus on the George pieces that are maybe not so easy to read. I write very lovingly,

01:06:29.300 nostalgically about George, our courtship, our marriage, what it was like to be married for

01:06:34.040 several years before we even had children. The conversation.

01:06:36.780 By the way, I want the audience to know, Ann Coulter set you up. It's a fun fact.

01:06:40.220 She did. George asked, you know, it's very unlike George to say, do you know this Kellyanne Fitzpatrick,

01:06:44.880 my maiden name, Megan, because he saw me on the cover of a magazine on the Metro line. I remember

01:06:49.460 pre-Excella. And it's very unlike him to ask. And we met. And anyway, I always say it was intrigue at

01:06:56.380 first sight with George and he made an effort and we bonded over sports, et cetera. But net, net, you know,

01:07:02.740 you're forever bound to people with whom you have children and to whom you've been married. So I really

01:07:07.540 try to look at the positive part. But I also say in the book, I'll never really understand what happened.

01:07:12.200 I'll never understand how this was worth it. And I say in this book, Megan, in the afterward,

01:07:15.340 ladies and gentlemen, if you are at odds or estranged from a loved one, a family member,

01:07:21.300 or a close friend because of politics, because of Trump or Biden, or just politics or ideology,

01:07:27.200 pick up the phone today. Do you want to be loved or do you want to be right? Is it really worth it?

01:07:32.800 And you're going to have these differences. We all have differences that I always say, you know,

01:07:38.220 opposites attract, but similars endure. But you know what, Megan, I mean that very earnestly in the book

01:07:44.060 because we can't unify as a country on different things if we can't unify as families or as households

01:07:51.240 or as circles. It has to be about politics. I mean, it's at so many people. I have so many

01:07:55.580 friendships with people who are, have very different political views than I do. We just

01:07:59.640 don't talk about politics. So many other more interesting things to talk about, especially

01:08:02.800 when you're married and you have kids. So do you think then Kellyanne that your time in the White

01:08:08.940 House wound up costing you your marriage? I don't look at it that way. No, I think couples,

01:08:15.700 only the couple knows what's really going on. And that is the truth here also. And I think

01:08:21.620 relationships are very complicated. And so, no, I think my time in the White House

01:08:26.520 was encouraged in large part by George who wanted to take a job and wanted to leave the firm and do

01:08:34.900 something totally different and did. I think George would have made a brilliant judge. I think

01:08:38.060 he'd make a, you know, great professor. I think if he wanted to go be a public interest lawyer

01:08:43.200 somewhere, he says he's retired, but he's very skilled and he's relatively young. And if he wants

01:08:48.200 to do that, of course, you know, he, I'll be cheering him from the sidelines, but, or in the arena as it

01:08:53.720 were. But no, I don't think, and I actually think that's respectfully an unfair question that the

01:08:59.940 woman would get asked, you know, the man's never really asked. I'm just saying that like he would,

01:09:05.920 for whatever reason, he was so hateful towards Trump, you know, he held it against you or whatever

01:09:10.760 it was, you know, too much obsession. I mean, we already know. And part of this book, Megan,

01:09:15.420 really is we already know what George thinks. He sent a hundred thousand tweets. I restrained. I

01:09:20.580 tried to have some class, dignity, grace, and restraint in not responding to the two tweeting men in my

01:09:26.180 life, particularly in my husband. And now is my turn to talk, not to do this tell all and bore most,

01:09:33.060 but to really open up and be pretty vulnerable, vulnerable about it. And, and, and no, but I

01:09:37.920 think, you know, not you certainly, but just generally, I think our society and the, and the

01:09:42.620 quick to judge the sexes in different ways and put us in these different box and categories

01:09:47.200 is, is always, we don't ask them. And do you think that like your golf habit or your gambling

01:09:52.000 habit or your mistress or your, do you think that costs your marriage? You know, it's just

01:09:56.120 always, should, should I have not taken a job? Should I have not moved my kids to Washington?

01:10:01.580 People need to know we did that. I don't think that. I mean, I think even if, even if the answer

01:10:05.500 is yes, I think, I think the haters do, they like to, I call them the one. If you lose your, if,

01:10:10.800 if you lost, if, if your marriage ended, and I mean, you haven't said that it's ended, I'm

01:10:16.240 gleaning that it's either over or drastically changed, um, because of your time in the white

01:10:22.120 house, then, you know, how strong was it to begin with? Right. It's like, uh, you'd like

01:10:26.560 to think that a strong foundation would have managed to find a way. And you ultimately walked

01:10:30.860 away. I mean, you ultimately did walk away to, so you could parent your kids, you could

01:10:33.560 tend to your family. I don't know what George did to protect the family. What I saw was a

01:10:38.000 man who didn't seem to care much about the effect on his wife and his kids. He really just

01:10:42.040 wanted to have his say about president Trump. So I'm trying to be generous to him and saying,

01:10:46.820 maybe he missed you, but I think you point out in the book, you know, I kind of felt as your

01:10:51.960 friends felt that he was, that this was abusive, that it felt sneaky, almost sinister. Those are the

01:10:58.060 words from the book. And I, I could relate to that. It felt abusive to me, what he did over and

01:11:03.200 over and over. So I'm not trying to give him an out. I'm just trying to like, he's not here. So I'm

01:11:08.180 trying to throw him a bone to try to give him a generous lens. Well, that is, well, thank you.

01:11:12.640 As do I, but that is, that is a word that is used time and again, and including by people who cannot

01:11:18.920 stand Donald Trump and would never vote for him and didn't want him to be president. They feel for

01:11:23.600 me and they feel for the kids. They've just quote, never seen anything like this. And so, and the

01:11:28.080 other thing I'll just say is let me make clear again, because I said it a half an hour ago on

01:11:31.440 your show and make very clear. George is entitled to his opinion, whether it's a political opinion,

01:11:35.920 an opinion about corgis or sports, the other things he tweets on. Apparently he's entitled to change

01:11:40.400 his mind about Donald Trump. He's entitled to change his politics. He's entitled to hate his

01:11:44.240 voting registration. That is never in question. What is very concerning, confusing, and just

01:11:52.860 unfathomable for me is why a year and a half after Donald Trump's not in the white house, why we're

01:12:00.480 still talking, why he's still talking about Donald Trump when he was in the white house. In other words,

01:12:04.840 many are there. It's just, it's too much. It's repetitive. We already heard it. We already know

01:12:09.380 it. And so I think it's critically important for us to focus on that piece as well. It's not really

01:12:15.860 the substance of the disagreement. It's the, it's the ubiquitousness of the disagreement. And I did say

01:12:22.980 less drama, more mama. I went in to tell the president I'm leaving. My kids need me and he was very

01:12:27.880 compassionate. No, no, no. You stay, you go do what they need you to do, honey. You stay. We want you

01:12:33.740 here. Don't worry about it. Barron's in the same situation we know. And I said, Mr. President,

01:12:37.920 I wasn't there enough in the spring. I was here in the situation room, sitting behind Dr. Fauci,

01:12:42.440 Fauci and Birx trying to figure out as a non-medical professional, what's going on and how can we

01:12:46.320 communicate it to the public? I said, I can't have the second school year with mom not fully present.

01:12:51.680 And that was my decision. And I'll never regret that decision. I'm glad to have made good on that

01:12:55.940 decision. And you had already accomplished so much. I mean, it was, it was, I think that was the

01:13:00.580 perfect time for you to make that move. You'd accomplished so much that you didn't know the

01:13:04.440 first term was, I can't remember. Did you know the first term was ending? You didn't, right?

01:13:08.580 Because it was January, 2020 that you left. It was August, 2020 when I announced I was leaving and

01:13:13.900 yes, the election was about two and a half. Yeah. So it was before, yeah. So you, for all you knew,

01:13:19.020 there was a second term coming and you were willingly stepping away from it to be with your family. And we

01:13:23.940 all have to find those, you know, those ways to sort of compromise between our,

01:13:28.060 our various responsibilities. All right, moving on from George, but before I do, can I, can I ask

01:13:32.560 you directly whether, are you still together? I don't answer the question about, the irony for me

01:13:37.640 is I don't discuss my private relationship that way. No, no problem whatsoever. Do not, do not,

01:13:43.600 genuinely do not wish to probe beyond where you're comfortable. We're married and we have four

01:13:46.860 children together. Those are the facts. Say again, I'm sorry. We are married and we have four

01:13:51.800 children together, four children together. Okay. And you're finding, finding a way to prioritize them,

01:13:56.720 which is good. Um, I mentioned it in a moment ago, look, George got swept up by the Twitter,

01:14:02.400 um, and the social media and the cult of George Conway, but, and the media covered it in a disgusting

01:14:08.000 way. But what they did to Claudia, George and Kellyanne's daughter, uh, one of her oldest,

01:14:12.700 she's got twins, uh, was absolutely disgusting and it's unforgivable. And she talks about it in

01:14:17.480 the book and we'll get into that and a bit more on life with Trump in just one second.

01:14:25.940 There are certain lines we didn't use to cross in media. And one of them was bringing somebody's

01:14:31.080 children into our coverage, especially in the political realm. And we've seen some blowback

01:14:36.360 to it. They tried to do it to Baron Trump and there was enough pushback that the media did back

01:14:40.840 off of Baron Trump, but Claudia, your daughter, she's one of your oldest, uh, boy, girl, twin set.

01:14:47.920 Um, she started tweeting and doing some Tik TOKs and so on. And that's fine. That is what every

01:14:52.560 teenage girl does. I mean, like they're all 15 year old girls are all on Tik TOK sending out pictures

01:14:58.480 of themselves is what they do. But that was not, um, a private matter according to Taylor Lorenz,

01:15:05.200 who I really think is emerging in story after story as a villain. She's just a villain who doesn't

01:15:10.760 care about destroying people's lives. And it doesn't matter how young or how private or how

01:15:15.360 unwilling they are to put themselves into the public eye and Tik TOK for a 15 year old girl.

01:15:20.780 It's not the same as the public eye. That is not the same as willingly being all over the pages of

01:15:25.040 the New York times or the Washington post. That's not. And any reporter worth her salt would

01:15:29.420 understand that if you are going to loop that girl in to a story and write about her or out the

01:15:34.840 Tik TOKs, et cetera, the parents must be involved. So please tell us what actually happened with this

01:15:43.580 Taylor Lorenz, who was writing for the New York times. Now she's with the Washington post and your

01:15:47.900 daughter and her Tik TOKs. And tell Lorenz is somebody who says she doesn't want people to know

01:15:52.260 her name, where she lives. She's so upset. She's crying on national TV, Megan, because people are

01:15:57.060 talking to this now 38 year old woman about her predatory behavior on not just my child, but other

01:16:04.480 people's children and calling this business leader of racist and on social media and showing up at

01:16:11.560 this teenager's house and promising them stuff. So there she is. Taylor Lorenz. So what happened is

01:16:16.800 very simple. My daughter was doing what teenagers do. She was photographing herself and her friends

01:16:22.420 on Tik TOK. And she was pushing back on authority, including mom and dad. She's expressing her

01:16:27.500 political views, which of course I, I raised all four of my children, George, Claudia, Charlotte,

01:16:33.120 and Vanessa to be independent thinkers, to make their own way, to probe and to discuss and to

01:16:37.660 discern and suss it all out. And then Taylor Lorenz thought she saw, she saw George in the back of one

01:16:42.660 of the Tik TOKs and realized who Claudia Conway was and immediately told her then 200,000 followers on

01:16:49.180 Twitter, did a whole string of Claudia's anti-Trump Tik TOKs, which because it's the New York times

01:16:53.820 allowed basically every other media outlet to do the same. Very few of them just stopped Megan in

01:16:59.760 that ferocious moment and said, hold on, is this news? Is this right? Is this appropriate? Let me go

01:17:06.320 back and see, or George and Claudia mentioned in this article as having said, this is okay,

01:17:12.320 or giving a comment. George Conway and Kelly Conway are fairly easy to reach people. And the fact that

01:17:18.720 Lorenz and none of her editors at the New York times did that. And the fact that when I called and

01:17:23.400 emailed them from my official white house account, so it'll be in the archives one day,

01:17:27.340 they were so flip, they were so insensitive and so flip. I said, this person should, she said,

01:17:33.600 oh, Taylor would love to talk to you and Claudia more about your family. My goodness. So George,

01:17:38.800 he got involved also. Well, that guy no longer has a job. She's now moved on, but, but people should

01:17:47.060 know that because of where I worked, because of how I vote, people thought it was okay to do something

01:17:54.100 that is not okay. Megan, a 15 year old cannot vote, cannot drive, cannot go to an R rated movie. I don't

01:18:00.220 think you can get the ears pierced without a parent's permission. Can't do any number of things

01:18:05.660 that adults can do, but yet you have adults, a 35 year old adult woman contacting Claudia and,

01:18:13.780 and promising her whatever teenager wants fame, fortune, likes, followers, attention, interviews.

01:18:20.140 And I have a lot of those direct messages because Claudia has shared them with me and I will not

01:18:25.240 forgive or forget the adults who did that to my daughter. Can you tell us, tell the audience what,

01:18:35.940 she and she and Claudia are basically equals. That they're mutuals and that it was fine that

01:18:40.860 they were talking because they're mutuals, they're peers. Hey chickpea, you're a 35 year old grown

01:18:46.520 woman. I mean, she's like a Peter Pan. She said she loves Twitter because she can just quote,

01:18:50.180 she posted a tweet from bed and said, I love Twitter because I can just post shit from my bed all day.

01:18:54.440 And then did, she doesn't have children of her own, which would be fine, except she's picking on other

01:18:59.220 people's children. She's a 35 year old person who said it's fine because Claudia and I are mutuals on

01:19:04.140 social media, which means they follow each other. That's weird. We're peers. And then this is the

01:19:09.200 kicker. And the New York times editors agreed with this until they were afraid and pulled back.

01:19:13.740 Megan. They said, you know, Taylor told Claudia, if at any time Claudia felt uncomfortable,

01:19:21.260 Claudia should give her parents Taylor's number. What? That's the standard now? By the way,

01:19:27.420 Megan, are there standards? Are there standards in media for contacting minors? I have asked this

01:19:32.240 question again and again. Somebody told me very recently at their, at ABC, there are, somebody told

01:19:38.260 me, and in other words, people gave me, I've been asking around, are there standards? Because there

01:19:42.240 need to be. You can, I mean, listen, I can only speak to my own experience, but at Fox and NBC,

01:19:46.760 you could never put a minor on the air without getting permission from the parent. You just,

01:19:51.580 you can't do a story about a minor and take pictures of them and use their personal information

01:19:56.160 without getting permission from the parent. You know, the New York times said, well, Claudia is famous.

01:20:00.320 She's a public figure. You just made her that way. You jerks. She wasn't before you did that.

01:20:04.700 So you made it and then said, this is fine. So I got to say, I give my daughter, Claudia,

01:20:09.800 a thousand, thousand barrels of credit, Megan, because, you know, once you get that fame and

01:20:15.160 fortune and attention and likes and all, it's very tough to give it up. And I have a message too,

01:20:19.540 to my former friends who have teenage girls who were Claudia's friends. They were, I think they were

01:20:24.780 very jealous of Claudia because some of them are in marketing, could never get that many likes and

01:20:29.620 attention, but you know what? It was a sick way that it happened. But my message is Claudia

01:20:33.920 overcame all that. She had more, she has more class dignity, judgment, and discretion as there

01:20:39.200 were three siblings in her pinky than these adults who were coming upon her like gargoyles.

01:20:45.100 Yes. Exploiting her. Exploiting her. You write about that in the book, that need, the need.

01:20:50.820 She's a teenager. She's a child.

01:20:52.940 Of course. And, and her need for likes and follows and retweets and all that is

01:20:57.920 very human, but especially exploitable, especially exploitable for a teenage girl,

01:21:04.160 which Taylor Lorenz 100% understands. And the New York times a hundred percent understands.

01:21:09.920 And instead of giving two shits about her, they exploited her. They created a severe problem,

01:21:16.560 uh, for her and her life. And even within your family walls. And then they sat back and tried to

01:21:22.280 feast on the spoils, Kellyanne. They, they enjoyed every phase of it. And when you and Taylor had,

01:21:28.240 I'm sorry, when you and, um, and Claudia had some tumult as a result of some of this,

01:21:32.960 cause we saw it, she tweeted it out, whatever. They loved that too. They, they dined on,

01:21:38.440 on that upset in your family, like vultures.

01:21:42.020 And I know who they were. And by the way, there are a lot of adults who still fall,

01:21:45.360 follow Claudia on Twitter. You're weird. What are you hoping she'll reveal to you? Exactly.

01:21:49.800 Like, what are you hoping she'll reveal to you? You are old enough to be her mother. Some of them

01:21:53.720 grandmother. Uh, and, and that's, that's the thing was they, they thought that Claudia was some kind

01:21:58.360 of love child between like Greta Thunberg and deep throat. She's my child, she's a child and she's my

01:22:03.920 child. And I have to tell you, Megan, the whole story of my father leaving us with no child support,

01:22:08.600 no alimony, me meeting him when I was 12 and having a full present loving relationship with him for 40

01:22:13.060 years until he passed away until I was 52. God rest his soul. I talk a lot about second chances and

01:22:18.260 redemption and mercy and forgiveness that if you're someone who seeks it, you ought to be someone who

01:22:21.660 also gives it when being asked. And I have to tell you on this one, I feel no mercy. I feel,

01:22:28.120 I don't feel an ounce of forgiveness to these predatory adults who all knew better. I mean,

01:22:34.200 look at what the late night comedians, I, should we be calling them comedians? I don't think most of

01:22:38.720 them. Activists. Look at what they were doing. And then if something happens when they showed,

01:22:42.940 oh, please, my child or, oh, my children, oh, my children are off limits. I'm sorry. We have to

01:22:48.080 have standards. And you know what I like to say in the book? You and I know a lot of these things,

01:22:52.560 not because somebody taught us or told us. If you've been raised by a woman and not a wolf,

01:22:57.460 people, you know what's right and what's wrong. And it has to apply evenly. But I'm very proud of

01:23:03.300 Claudia because she's objectively brilliant and beautiful. And she's got so much going on that

01:23:07.900 these predatory adults, these troubled, thin-skinned, terrified nobodies living in glass houses will

01:23:15.000 never have going on what Claudia Conway has going on. How is she doing now? Because you write in the

01:23:19.560 book that her health was compromised by the heady events that went down.

01:23:25.100 Yeah, it's just very jarring for, you know, first of all, I think the health of that entire generation,

01:23:30.920 that entire section is really about screen time to school time, the challenges that came from that,

01:23:36.260 from the isolation, from being out of the classrooms, off the campus, and then being in

01:23:40.180 front of the screen for school, and then being in front of the screen to see you trending.

01:23:45.080 It was all very chaotic, very heady. And I really do have to thank so many friends and acquaintances,

01:23:51.420 many of whom don't like Donald Trump for stepping in. I have to thank Donald Trump himself and Melania

01:23:57.660 Trump and so many people, so many colleagues in the White House for really just trying to give us

01:24:01.700 protective cover. And they know you just don't do that. And no, she's great. Claudia is,

01:24:07.500 she's amazing. She's going to have a big life, big brain, beautiful girl. And like her three

01:24:12.700 siblings, Megan, George and Charlotte and Vanessa, they are resilient. We already know what they're

01:24:19.320 made of. We already know who they are and what they're made of. And I tell them all, you ought to

01:24:22.900 write that in your college essays because everyone runs around, my kid is resilient. My kid is

01:24:26.660 taking Mandarin. My kid can do this, can do that. That's so wonderful, everybody. We were tested,

01:24:33.500 and they came on the other side. That's actually a great idea.

01:24:35.160 The people they are. Now, wait, you mentioned something in passing. Did you lose friends?

01:24:41.360 Friends abandoned you because of the Claudia tweets?

01:24:44.780 I think, well, what happened is one of my very close friends has a daughter who's very jealous of

01:24:51.060 Claudia, who always tried to be a model, who, you know, is always posting bikini pictures on TikTok

01:24:56.360 for what purpose? I mean, is she a bikini model or does she want likes and followers? So I think

01:25:00.180 there was a lot of tension there that people were getting what other, Claudia was getting what other

01:25:04.840 people wanted. Who would want what happened to her actually? And then another very close friend

01:25:09.100 who Claudia considered a second mom slapped her across the face and called me and said,

01:25:12.720 I did that for you. You did it for me. You slapped my child. She's just, she's out of control.

01:25:18.840 She's, uh, that is not what you do. You, you show compassion. You, you envelope somebody in love

01:25:24.060 and understanding. And Megan, whatever the reaction is, you just start out with what you

01:25:29.480 and I and everybody watching this knows or should know, ladies and gentlemen, which is these are

01:25:34.720 children. You can count the number of days they've been alive. You remember your life before they were

01:25:39.380 here. They rely upon us. I had done a research project. I talk about in the book, Megan, years ago,

01:25:45.240 right before I had children, right before Georgia and Claudia were born. I did a research project between

01:25:49.100 9-11 and when they were born in the fall of 2004 and always stuck with me. These women who were

01:25:53.380 leaving the workforce, not necessarily when their kids were babies, but when they were teens and

01:25:59.020 tweens, recognizing that, that those are the tough years that you need someone there when they get

01:26:05.040 home. Um, they get off the bus or you pick them up from school. They've been bullied. They're going

01:26:10.820 through puberty. They're there. They're, they feel less than they're not invited to the sleepover. I mean,

01:26:16.880 I'm 55 years old. If I wasn't invited to something on a Saturday night, I had no idea. I had a perfectly

01:26:20.820 nice Saturday night. Oh my God. I'd be like, thank God. I always say, I don't, I don't have FOMO. I

01:26:24.680 have JOMO. I have joy of missing out. It's fine. Don't invite me. You see what I'm saying? Yes. I,

01:26:30.140 yes. There are some friendships that are beyond repair. And then I also, and that's okay. I mean,

01:26:34.580 I, I, I, listen, that's okay. I found out who people really are. They could be phony hypocrites

01:26:38.620 all they want. Things shake out the way they should. What I care about is my relationship with my

01:26:42.500 daughter. And I do go after the people who tried to cause dissension and disruption and legal, uh,

01:26:49.420 disruption in, in, in my household and shame on them. I think that, um, you know, again, these

01:26:54.320 people, I, I feel this is my problem with the cultural cleavage we have right now that I write

01:26:59.480 about Megan, the difference between people who live their lives mostly online, which is a lot of people

01:27:04.040 in this country, sadly, and people like me who want to live their life mostly offline where I don't

01:27:08.820 know, it looks, tastes, smells, and is better. Uh, but I think people online believe, believe this

01:27:16.000 parallel universe in which they live. And you had, you had 25 plus years of life without that.

01:27:22.620 Same as about it. So I think that's helpful. You know, I mean, this generation, they've never had

01:27:27.200 it. And it's one of the sad things about the adults, the adults who just believe other strangers

01:27:32.300 comments and act on them. And, uh, they are there. I just, I hope they get some fresh air, a hobby

01:27:39.220 and some love, but maybe an elbow in the face if they continue their bad behavior. Um, let me ask

01:27:45.560 you about Jared Kushner. You don't seem to be a fan. Um, he wasn't very kind to you, according to the

01:27:52.940 book while you were in the white house. Uh, you write, he didn't have the guts to bring it up to me

01:27:57.720 himself, but Ivanka told me your husband resented all the credit I got for the 2016 election win

01:28:01.960 while he had been quote written out of it. Then you're right. He must've forgotten about the time

01:28:06.800 he posted on, posed on the cover of Forbes magazine as the guy who won the election,

01:28:10.040 his regular communications with Rupert Murdoch and Matt Drudge to help shape coverage, including of him,

01:28:14.500 or when he summoned acolyte Brad Parscale on onto 60 minutes to claim how brilliant the two of them

01:28:20.460 were in securing Trump's victory in 2016 or the, well, you get the point. Thoughts on,

01:28:27.720 Jared Kushner. Well, look, you said, I wasn't a fan of his. I wasn't a fan of the way he treated me

01:28:33.900 and excluded me from policy meetings. The president wanted me to be in or pieces of the portfolio that

01:28:40.000 had been assigned to me or shared with him. I think when you have all that authority and not

01:28:45.340 much accountability, that golf GULF is dangerous. And Jared Kushner is a very smart person. He's very

01:28:52.400 shrewd. He's very smart. He had great business experience when he came to the white house,

01:28:55.860 but it wasn't Washington experience. And Megan, I write in the book, I write in the book,

01:29:00.480 here's the deal. Pick up your copy. Good father, good be treat. Megan, I write in here is the deal

01:29:05.680 that it was very charming, if not determinative, that Donald Trump had no Washington experience.

01:29:12.600 That's what America wanted in their next president. But it wasn't as charming when people in his inner

01:29:17.800 circle didn't have any experience and weren't really willing to learn it, to do the work.

01:29:21.840 Looking back, I think we all should have gotten to Washington sooner to be part of the active

01:29:26.000 transition in Washington, DC and not up in Trump Tower in New York. We were just so busy there.

01:29:30.640 But I'm somebody who knows what she doesn't know. And I think Jared just always trying to throw logs

01:29:36.500 in my way, excluding me purposely from things, including the 2020 campaign, putting his own

01:29:41.440 Brad Parscale there, who Jared and the president eventually fired, but not until about July of 2020.

01:29:46.100 So very late in the game, he had been the campaign manager for two and a half years.

01:29:49.300 He had $1.4 billion. And I was very frank with the president. I said, you know, why does he get

01:29:54.600 to pick and choose his legacy? You don't. People just are picking your legacy for you. That's not

01:29:58.900 fair. He screwed up politics in the Midwest and then hightailed it to bring peace to the Mideast.

01:30:05.000 And again, I think some of the accomplishments that he was involved in are notable, are consequential,

01:30:11.100 but we had a secretary of state. We had a vice president. We had a president. Why is it always the

01:30:15.260 women who are willing to share their credit? I was given credit immediately. Oh, without you,

01:30:18.660 Donald Trump, when they're going, you turn that campaign around. We all watched you on TV seven,

01:30:21.880 eight days and seven, eight times a day telling us we're going to Wisconsin, Michigan for this,

01:30:25.440 like walking us through the strategy. And I'm always immediately sharing the credit. I was part

01:30:29.900 of a small, but smart, nimble team who got it done. I would name everybody else. And yet, you know,

01:30:36.360 they, they're trying to take credit. And I just think it's regrettable. I think many women

01:30:40.580 understand what I'm talking about men in the workplace, you know, whether it's subtle or overt,

01:30:45.360 just trying to diminish or sideline or denigrate you. They also tried to say I was a leaker. I

01:30:53.800 mean, good God, Megan, did you, did you see me out there with the press in a non-pressing

01:30:57.160 communication shop on the gravel for 25 minutes, taking their questions? I think I then went inside

01:31:02.260 and I think you made a great point in the book. I agree with the points in the book about how to

01:31:05.880 spot a leaker. They're very good. People should, people should buy the book. I won't reveal them here,

01:31:09.520 but you're dead on, especially point number one. And I'm just going to leave it as a tease. So the

01:31:14.060 audience has a reason to go read. I have to ask you about Trump, of course, and his electoral

01:31:20.100 prospects, Kellyanne, because there are so many people speculating and Trump, you know, he kind

01:31:24.380 of, I guess there are reasons, all sorts of like fundraising and other reasons why he can't really

01:31:28.780 say, yes, I'm running. But if he runs again, you know, you're at a different place in your life,

01:31:34.160 got a few years under your belt now since you left. Would you serve again if he, if he wins?

01:31:39.160 Well, if he runs and then if he wins. Well, I want Joe Biden and Kamala Harris out of their

01:31:43.760 ASAP because let's start with that. I think in less time than it takes to have a baby, Megan,

01:31:51.000 they unraveled so many of the best policies and mostly based on spite, some of ideology,

01:31:55.760 but mostly just based on the competence and spite a lot of those negative attributes about which the

01:32:00.260 public sees now, because you look at the polls and it's irrefutable. So I want to be there for my best

01:32:04.780 and highest use. If President Trump would like me to work with him, then we can. I think people

01:32:09.140 are looking for vintage Trump. They loved the 2015, 2016, build the wall, repeal, replace

01:32:14.160 Obamacare, cut your taxes, repeal Common Core. Like there's three, three easy to remember three

01:32:20.140 word policy prescriptions that then had a lot of substance behind them. And not a rehash of the

01:32:25.220 2020 election. And he has such a joy in the job. He and I are not going to really see eye to eye on

01:32:29.560 that, I suppose. And I know he's got a lot of people in his head at all times saying today's the

01:32:33.920 day. Pennsylvania is going to decertify. Today's the day. Wisconsin will change his voice.

01:32:37.840 Today's the day. Georgia. I've just always been very frank and upfront with him. I'm heartbroken

01:32:41.720 that he's not in the Oval Office. I wanted him to win a second term. I wish he were the president

01:32:46.100 right now. And I just think there are a lot of people feeding his brain at all times, things that

01:32:51.600 they were not able to deliver upon. And if you have that evidence, if this is what happened, put it

01:32:56.860 forward, get it going. But absent that, I think people want to get back to the great Trump economy,

01:33:04.480 the energy independence, the national security, Putin not in Ukraine, Iran not salivating as a

01:33:10.920 nuclear capable threat to Israel, manufacturing, mining, people who work with their hands being

01:33:17.620 respected and resourced and having opportunities. The list goes on and on, as you know. Joe Biden's

01:33:24.400 going to shut down the virus. We're still dealing with it. We gave him three vaccines ready to go on

01:33:28.380 the arm. And he's dealing with three or more variants. We don't. So much has gone awry.

01:33:34.740 And I think if there's a rematch, President Trump is best equipped to say this is a rematch.

01:33:39.940 The guy who got this done and the guy who unraveled, you decide.

01:33:43.780 You know, there's a big debate within the Republican Party about whether Trump's

01:33:46.700 the best man for the job. Is he too divisive? Are there you know, has he overcome some of the issues

01:33:51.140 that cost him the election the last time? Mike Pence making noise about possibly running against

01:33:57.360 President Trump. Trump said this week on I think it was Stuart Varney. He's not worried about Pence.

01:34:03.200 I think he meant he's not worried about losing to Pence. So what do you make? I mean, do you do

01:34:08.440 you understand? Do you see the argument? It's time for a new standard bearer, somebody with perhaps

01:34:12.180 less baggage? Well, there are people who have lots of there are many standard bearers of the

01:34:17.140 America First agenda. They're all running on that, aren't they? I mean, some of them think they're

01:34:21.020 going to run as the never Trump candidate or post Trump candidate. Right now, that lane looks like

01:34:25.020 a bike path and it's pretty crowded. It's not yet a lane. Don't know that it would be. But I think

01:34:29.360 first and foremost, if President Trump himself, the leader of the America First movement, the man who

01:34:34.320 helped make, well, who got all these accomplishments done, Megan, he'll go first and he'll say whether

01:34:39.420 or not he's running and then we'll see what others do. If he doesn't run, I believe the person who

01:34:45.360 needs to appeal to those 74 million voters and the person, Trump voters, and the person who needs

01:34:50.900 to pick up the America First mantle, that will be somebody who's hewing very closely to those

01:34:56.360 policies. Obviously, Vice President Pence is out there, Secretary of State Pompeo. There are others

01:35:01.080 who are out there continuing to talk about the great policy accomplishments of the Trump-Pence-Pompeo

01:35:05.940 administration. They're certainly in demand for speeches, for appearances, for congressional

01:35:11.240 endorsements and fundraising. And I think I contrast that to what's going on in the Democratic Party,

01:35:16.920 where you have sitting congressmen and Senate candidates who don't want President Joe Biden

01:35:23.100 to have their number to campaign with them. So it's really fascinating to see. I think it's

01:35:26.920 going to be a fantastic fall for the Republican Party and the conservative movement.

01:35:30.900 But I've got to ask you, as somebody who's a pollster and who ran a successful campaign,

01:35:36.060 give us the odds. What are the odds Trump is going to run? What do you think?

01:35:40.600 Going to run? Oh, I think the odds are better than not that he runs because he wants to run. And I think

01:35:45.000 that he'd like to announce it sooner rather than later, because that's Donald Trump. He's out there

01:35:48.460 being asked to be a kingmaker and was the king. So I think it's very simple to understand that.

01:35:53.380 And look, Donald Trump, give him his due. He did this already. He's one for one when he ran the first

01:35:58.060 time. The first time he ran, he won. Number two, he sees what's going on in this country. He's part

01:36:02.620 of the majority, vast majority of Americans, Megan, who is distraught and upset with the policies,

01:36:08.780 the disaster, the man-made disaster that is the Biden-Harris White House sheet. If you have an

01:36:12.940 opportunity to help confront that and turn it around, it's tough to sit on the sidelines. So

01:36:18.280 I think it's much better than 50-50 that he does do it today, May 26, 2022.

01:36:23.660 Wow. All right. Well, I'll say this. I read this book and what I saw was that Jersey girl throughout,

01:36:28.420 a strong person who confronts people in the moment who are treating her poorly, who doesn't wait until

01:36:33.860 later to be a backstabber. You know, she'll punch you in the face, not stick the knife in your back

01:36:38.860 once you've walked away and who's taken so much incoming, really unjustifiably and handled it

01:36:46.400 with a lot of grace, Kellyanne. I respect you. I admire you. And I'm really glad to have the

01:36:50.820 chance to talk to you. Thank you for reading the book, Megan, and for having me today. I hope to

01:36:54.620 join you again. All the best to you and your family. Thank you. Thank you. Back at you. And

01:36:58.380 don't forget, the book is called Here's the Deal. She's right. It actually is a good beach read. I mean,

01:37:03.060 you'll sit there with your husband or your spouse and you'll be like, listen to this,

01:37:05.960 listen to this. Very, very open. It's out now. Thanks for listening. You guys don't forget to

01:37:11.680 tune into the show tomorrow. We have Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer. Trust me when I tell

01:37:16.780 you, you do not want to miss this interview. It's unbelievable. In the meantime, make sure you

01:37:22.240 don't miss it by downloading the Megan Kelly show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify, and Stitcher.

01:37:25.860 You can subscribe to our show, please, at youtube.com slash Megan Kelly. And in the meantime,

01:37:32.320 thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - May 26, 2022

Outrageous Media Behavior, and Balancing White House Work and Family, with Kellyanne Conway ｜ Ep. 330

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