George Conway calls Trump a 'racist president'
George Conway, the conservative lawyer and husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, says that despite his pointed criticisms of President Trump, he had refrained from believing Trump was a racist. But Trump’s attacks on four Democratic congresswomen of color left him “no doubt”: The president is a “racist.”
In a scathing new op-ed published in the Washington Post Tuesday, Conway writes that until Sunday, he thought Trump was simply “boorish, dim-witted, inarticulate, incoherent, narcissistic and insensitive.”
“No matter how much I found him ultimately unfit, I still gave him the benefit of the doubt about being a racist,” Conway writes. “But Sunday left no doubt. Naivete, resentment and outright racism, roiled in a toxic mix, have given us a racist president.”
The latest firestorm over Trump’s rhetoric began Sunday, when Trump tweeted that the self-proclaimed “Squad” — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts — should “go back” to their “broken and crime infested” countries. All are U.S. citizens, and three of the four were born in the U.S.
On Monday, Trump tried to defend his attack while simultaneously escalating the feud at a Made in America product showcase at the White House. Trump contended that if the congresswomen have “a problem with our country, if somebody doesn’t want to be in our country, they should leave.”
“These are people that hate our country,” Trump said. “They hate our country. They hate it, I think, with a passion.”
When asked if he was concerned his comments were being used as validation by white nationalists, the president said he was not.
“It doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me,” Trump said.
The congresswomen subsequently held a press conference on Capitol Hill in which they hit back at Trump and called for his impeachment. Conway also called for Trump’s impeachment following special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation
“What the Mueller report disturbingly shows, with crystal clarity, is that today there is a cancer in the presidency: President Donald J. Trump,” he wrote at the time.
Conway, who has emerged as one of Trump’s fiercest critics, was not always one.
In an interview with the Yahoo News “Skullduggery” podcast last year, he admitted he wept with joy and pride on election night, reflecting on how Kellyanne Conway helped engineer Trump’s upset victory over Hillary Clinton.
“Look, my wife did an amazing thing,” he said. “She basically got this guy elected.”
Appearing on Fox News Tuesday, Kellyanne Conway was asked if she agreed with her husband’s view that the president is a racist.
“I totally disagree,” Conway said. “But I work with this president. I know him. I know his heart. I know his actions. I know how much he has helped people of color.”
___
Read more from Yahoo News:
