Kellyanne Conway’s week has taken on a combative note. On Wednesday night, she scolded a teenager who asked about Trump’s alleged sexual assault history at an event held by University of Virginia. And on Thursday, Conway popped up over Harvard University, which hosted a “postmortem” of the election with key members of both major party campaign staffs. Things grew ugly between Conway and Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri.
At one point during the panel discussion, praise began to shower down for (the absent) Breitbart’s Steve Bannon, who acted as the campaign CEO for the last few months of the race and will continue as Trump’s chief strategist. Under Bannon’s watchful eye, Breitbart became a haven for an anti-Semitic audience, and the Clinton members of this Harvard panel weren’t keen to let this slide. A disgusted Palmieri accused the Trump campaign of relying upon racially charged rhetoric to win over some voters. The Washington Post reports how shouting voices were in full force:
“If providing a platform for white supremacists makes me a brilliant tactician, I am proud to have lost,” [Palmieri] said. “I would rather lose than win the way you guys did.”
Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, fumed: “Do you think I ran a campaign where white supremacists had a platform?”
“You did, Kellyanne. You did,” interjected Palmieri, who choked up at various points of the session.
Them’s fighting words from both ladies. WaPo notes that Conway then began to criticize Clinton for failing to connect with working-class white voters, which is a fair point. But Conway didn’t stop there, she called the Clinton staffers sore losers, which led to Clinton Chief Strategist Joel Benenson pointing out all the “dog whistles” that Trump sent out at rallies. The Daily Beast reported that the audience very much enjoyed the show with one person chuckling at the “goddamn foodfight” on display.
(Via Washington Post & Daily Beast)